Armstrong Economics Blog/Real Estate Re-Posted Jun 6, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I have a question about Blackrock buying up all these homes. It seems that the Dodd-Frank bill empowered Blackrock to buy up all of these homes and rent them out. Was this all rigged for their benefit?

Thank you for being a rare light of truth in these dark times.

ED

ANSWER: Dodd-Frank Title XIV establishes minimum standards for all mortgage products. It was a very clever piece of legislation that I would suspect Blackrock had a hand in creating. It prevents making a home mortgage loan unless they reasonably determine that the borrower can repay the loan based on the borrower’s credit history, current income, expected income, and other factors. The solution was to stiffen regulations to trap people into being perpetual renters and in reality shuts them down from ever owning a home. This has created the marketplace for Blackrock. It would be one hell of a coincidence that this provision came from a politician who did not understand the economy. It has the fingerprints of something much more sinister.

The Dodd-Frank Act effectively legislated that banks cannot allow a low-income person to own a home. Obama claimed that to make sure that a crisis like this never happens again, he signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act into law which was indeed the most far-reaching Wall Street reform in history. It was pitched that the Dodd-Frank legislation would prevent the excessive risk-taking that led to the financial crisis. Yet it did so by outlawing home ownership for the low-income and trapping them as perpetual rental clients for Blackrock. That was very convenient. Quite a few hands were in the cookie jar on this one. The wording was discriminatory for the potential home buyer rather than targeting the practices of the banks who made the mortgages and resold them. The better way would be to penalize the original mortgage lender for their lack of fiduciary duty than to codify restrictions on the consumer.