This is the best summary I could come up with:
Houle argues corporate investment has changed the market because these large companies are so efficient at finding ways to increase the profit they pull from renters.
In partnership between the City of Edmonton and the University of Alberta, the Solutions Lab has been researching housing financialization and posted their findings online this spring.
Renters say they’re now facing long lines for viewings, paying hundreds of dollars for deposits and competing with others in a rental search they call “dehumanizing.”
At the School of Planning in Waterloo, associate professor Martine August specializes in housing financialization and led the background research for the hearings on behalf of Houle.
Moshe Lander, an economist at Concordia University who lives in Alberta, says theoretically, housing financialization does raise rents in the short term.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Also this
They found that investors now own around 48 per cent of purpose-built rentals in Edmonton — nearly double the estimated amount of 20 to 30 per cent nationwide. That’s about 26 per cent of Edmonton’s total rental market, including condo conversions and private rentals.
The change in ownership has been happening at the same time as the increase in rent. But to what extent is it causing the rental increase? The team doesn’t know that yet, they say.
I’m so tired of things getting so obviously worse and no one is willing to do a single thing about it.