[sottol]

I've found that with housing, prices are often set "at the margins". If even one landlord is asking $4k for an 800sqft 2BR, it might sit unrented for a while but other landlords will notice and nudge their prices of similar units towards that. This definitely happens faster in tight markets.

Additionally, institutional investors have bought up around 5% of the SFH market so far, some estimates say they will own up to 40% by 2030. [1]

I would not be surprised if they already have significant pricing (signaling-)power and can already influence prices with just their 5% ownership, eg only Blackrock by itself.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/21/how-wall-street-bought-singl...