The American suburb has long been the land of the homeowner. For the most part, suburban municipalities permit only one physical form of housing: the detached single-family home, floating on its parcel of lawn and driveway. It's an image that stands for homeownership, and nearly 85 percent of these structures are owner-occupied. Some communities contain so few accommodations for tenants that they have been defined as 'rental deserts.' But there is no technical reason that a renter cannot live in a house. The mortgage is not what makes the walls stand up. This picture started to change during the 2008 financial crisis, when an unexpected buyer emerged for foreclosed properties: the corporate landlord. Over the course of the 2010s, companies such as Blackstone and American Homes 4 Rent scooped up houses around Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; Tampa, Florida; and Sun Belt cities. In the eyes of many aspiring homeowners, these 'Wall Street' landlords were villains who had the upper...
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