We already are a nation of renters. I may have paid off the bank's interest in supposedly my property, but will never -ever- pay off the government's (lord's) interest. The "royal rent" to the lordship may be called property or school taxes, but those are nothing more than euphemistic constant reminders I don't actually own my home when missing said payments can land me in the street, homeless. Add to that rules and regulations (the lease agreement I never signed) must be adhered to by begging permission from the lordship and paying fees to get that permission to do anything on supposedly my property. Any time the lordship becomes disapproving of me or anything I do, then simply increasing the royal rent, fees, or lease regulations and rules can be used to drive me off supposedly my property.

We the Living.

I can't say it better.

This sounds to me too much like a socialist denying the right of property ownership. I didn't expect to see anything like that here.

The reason homes are in short supply (and companies like BlackRock are starting to monopolize them) is urban planning/zoning, which acts as a cartel, forcing most owners of unbuilt land to keep it that way in order to create the shortage. (The cartel consists of local owners of existing homes, who operate the planning agencies in the way that maximizes prices and thus their own profit.) This problem has gotten worse under the UN "Sustainable Communities" initiative (AKA "Agenda 21" and "Agenda 2030") which seeks to force rural-area residents to move into cities. So it's becoming harder to put up homes with government approval, but there are still ways to do it without them knowing about it.

Landlords putting unfair conditions in leases are a morally ambiguous situation. I see them as presumptively valid even though some of them would not exist if enough competition were allowed. Besides, landlords are getting screwed right now by the eviction moratorium which was just renewed.

The war on home ownership can't be adequately addressed without reference to the UN's "Agenda 21," which was hatched at the 1992 Rio Gaia-Worship Summit by a collectivist named Maurice Strong, and which has been allowed to make massive strides in the 39 years since. If you haven't heard of it I suggest familiarizing yourselves with it, because it holds the potential to enslave the entire population of the world under a global totalitarian neo-feudalism enforced with an iron fist. An article which serves as a great intro is here:
https://www.atlassociety.org/post/sov...

Essentially the UN's Agenda involves:
- global, collectivist government and obliteration of all individual nations worldwide (natch);
- the elimination of property rights;
- the forced relocation of all non-urban residents from their land into mega-cities strung along a single giant "transit corridor" in every continent;
- the designation of all thusly-vacated-and-confiscated private lands as "wilderness areas" which are to be 100% off-limits to human presence of any kind, in perpetuity;
- the elimination of personal transportation, IOW the elimination of cars and even the dismantling of roadways;
- the elimination of the right to migration (i.e., travel) without State permission;
- 100% control of "urban planning," with people warehoused in pack-and-stack urban mega-anthills within State-approved cubicles (think: Bruce Willis' flat in "The Fifth Element);
- 100% control of appliances by government, via the "Internet of Things" - which means State-rationed heating, cooling, lighting, washing, electricity in general;
- a 100% State monopoly on medicine, which means your very body belongs to the State, not to you (a.k.a. slavery);
- 100% State control of childbearing;
- Children as wards of the State, not of their parents;
- etc.

That implies a massive variety of fires to be put out - and "fire-breaks" to be created for future prevention - but to confine this to the context of land use and home ownership, here are three stakes that we should be demanding that our politicians drive through the heart of this blood-sucking Agenda 21 monster:

1. A Constitutional Amendment to abolish property taxation, nationwide, as a human rights violation. As McCannon01 correctly stated, we are a nation of renters, not of homeowners. Not one American, even those who've paid off their mortgages in full, owns a home. Not one. For if you are compelled by law to make periodic payments to someone else, on pain of getting tossed into the street if you don't, then by definition you are a renter, not an owner.

Malta, Lichtenstein, Croatia, Thailand, Monaco, Fiji, the Cook Islands, New Zealand, Israel, Dubai, Bahrain are some of the countries where there is no residential property taxation at all, or at most a one-time tax on purchase or sale of a residence, but no perpetual, annual tax on property. The USA, once the leader of the free world, has a less-just tax policy than Croatia? Than Malta? Than Dubai? America should be leading the way by example - in abolishing the barbaric anachronism of residential property taxation entirely, as a new human rights paradigm for the entire world. We must fight to make that abolition a reality;

2. A nationwide review, divestiture and selloff to private American citizens, of all government-held lands not directly related to physical government facilities. Though it's predicated almost entirely on surface issues of stewardship and economic practicality rather than on core ethics and human rights, in 1999 the Cato Institute published a comprehensive blueprint for such a privatization:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa363.pdf

3. The de facto abolition of the "United Nations," a.k.a. The International Tyrants' Day Care Center, Manhattan Campus - comprising: a.) The cessation of all funding of that organization, b.) the expulsion of that organization from American soil, c.) the nullification of all "treaties" and agreements entered into under its auspices, d.) the public declaration of America's non-recognition of any legitimacy in the "UN"'s claim of authority over sovereign nations or any claim of legitimacy in its quasi-military forces, and e.) the strong recommendation to all of our allies that they follow suit on a through d. Let that remaining clutch of the world's tyrants stare at each other across plastic tables in the banquet hall of a greasy-spoon diner on Madagascar or Kiribati and plot their cartoon world-conquest schemes from there.

Longtime Objectivists will fondly recall the periodical called The Intellectual Activist. I think we've gotten a bit too lax on the whole "activist" thing...

How did they "accidentally fail" to extend the COVID related eviction ban? That's not something they could do accidentally.
Can't they stop these private equity firms from buying houses?

I saw the article earlier. I think it is dead on about what could happen. And to add to the misery, it isn't the gubmint alone, it is big money. Bill Gates and CCP China have been buying up a lot of land. Gates is now the largest landowner in the US.

We never did own anything. You get a citation if your grass is too high. The tidy cop puts a citation on you if a paper cup ends up on your fence after a parade. Taxes keep going up. Can't throw certain things in your trash. I moved out of the manse into an apartment and I don't worry about anything. Let the owners worry about that crap.

Maybe?