Buying a home is one of the best ways to invest and accumulate wealth, but that prospect is becoming less likely by the day for ordinary people.
Large investment management companies like “The Blackstone Group” have been accumulating residential properties and renting them out. Their massive coffers, along with the lower interest rates they are afforded, make the idea of competing with them implausible for regular homebuyers.
Renting from Blackstone may also be more difficult based on where you live. For instance, if someone lives in an area where a law was just passed limiting a landlord’s ability to raise the rent during renovations, renters will have to look elsewhere, as Blackstone’s units will be empty to send a message to lawmakers.
Optimists would point to the fact that 72.5% of single-unit rental properties are owned by individuals, but the aforementioned conditions would indicate that a decrease in that number is likely. This reshaping of the housing market would lock even more people out of the home-owning class.
Would-be homeowners will instead be subject to ever-increasing rent paid on the first of every month until they die, with no meaningful assets to leave their children. 
This future may seem inevitable, but there are measures to be taken against it. State governments should levy fines against companies like Blackstone that intentionally leave their units vacant to prove a point against governments wishing to limit their predatory practices. Corporate landlords should not be able to artificially create more scarcity in the market by proverbially taking their ball and going home.
Another thing that can be done to keep rent prices low is rent control. State and local governments should enact rent control laws in as many places as possible to limit the number of places Blackstone and other investment giants can drive up rent prices. 
The federal government should limit the number of residential properties that a company can own. This would help ensure that regular people have some houses on the market that they don’t have to compete with investment companies for, or, at the very least, there will be various companies competing, leading to lower rent prices.
Additionally, the federal government should spend more money on affordable housing programs that help more Americans own houses. Making the dream of homeownership a reality should be a priority of current and future administrations.
Blackstone’s apparent goal is to make sure that nobody with less than six yachts can buy a house in America ever again. Their house hoarding practices exacerbate the disparity between the haves and the have-nots in our society, and they should face resistance in their efforts to do so. 
Federal, state, and local governments should do everything in their power to protect the American homebuyer. 
Americans should be confident that their benevolent government will protect them from the scourge of corporate greed, as they have always done in the past.
Frank Kidd is a 21-year-old mass communication junior from Springfield.