Ex-Labor Secretary Robert Reich Says, ‘If We Want To Make Housing Affordable For Working People, We Must Get Wall Street Out Of Our Homes’
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A growing number of U.S. homes are being bought up by investors instead of regular homebuyers, and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich says that’s pushing working Americans out of the housing market.
“If we want to make housing affordable for working people, we must get Wall Street out of our homes,” Reich said in a recent post on X. He shared the comment alongside a video in which he lays out how hedge funds and private equity firms have taken over a larger share of the housing market over the past decade.
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Referencing a recent BatchData report, Reich noted that nearly 27% of all U.S. homes sold in the first quarter of this year were purchased by investors—the largest share recorded in over five years. Between 2020 and 2023, the average was 18.5%, according to the report.
That translates to 265,000 homes purchased by investors in just the first quarter of this year. Meanwhile, many would-be buyers are sitting on the sidelines due to high mortgage rates and rising prices. “Rent is skyrocketing and home buying is out of reach for millions,” Reich said in the video he posted on X alongside his comments. “One big reason why? Wall Street.”
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Reich, who served in the Clinton administration, pointed out that investors started ramping up their home purchases after the 2008 financial crisis. “The Street’s excessive greed created a housing bubble that burst. Millions of people lost their homes to foreclosure,” he said. “Did the Street learn a lesson? Of course not. It got bailed out. Then it began picking off the scraps of the housing market it had just destroyed.”
