In my last column, I argued that Eugene now possesses two distinct rental markets: a starved traditional market limping at 3.4% vacancy, and a glutted student housing market with 8.25% vacancy.
The divergence was a predictable outcome of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and Private Equity (PE) development patterns. As Christina Bollo, assistant professor in UO’s School of Architecture & Environment, explains, “REITs want maximum return while the private landowner… has a ‘return’ of doing the right thing for a community and maybe leaving something for their grandchildren.”
In this installment, I’ll shift focus to examine how we became overdependent on REITs and PE to build homes, what Bollo called the “financialization of housing.” I’ll follow the path of a construction project, examining how obstacles mount at each step, filtering out the contractors we rely on to build the homes Eugene lacks…