ALL INPredictions
Last updated Nov 29, 2025
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Jason @ 01:02:33Right
politicseconomy
Over the next several years, institutional accumulation of single‑family homes combined with low mortgage rates and constrained supply will trigger broad political and social backlash in the United States; this will either (a) cause significant net migration from high‑regulation states such as California and New York to pro‑development states like Texas, or (b) force high‑regulation states to substantially relax development and zoning restrictions (e.g., allowing much more building in places like Sacramento) in response to the pressure.
I think what's happening now becomes the catalyst to break the NIMBYism. If all these blackrocks are buying up all the homes, if young people and young families can't buy a home despite mortgage rates being ridiculously low, and despite them having the money to do it and the desire to do it, then that's going to create a massive societal upheaval, I believe. And then that's going to either drive people to other states like Texas is benefiting because they're pro-development. It's going to catalyze the massive movement of people out of New York, out of California, whatever states are, are giving too much red tape. It's going to drive people to those states, because that's where the housing people are going to be built, or those states are going to crack under the pressure and say, you know what? We're going to let you build in Sacramento.View on YouTube
Explanation

By 2025, both main outcomes Jason described have effectively occurred, even though multiple forces (remote work, taxes, general housing under‑building, high post‑2022 mortgage rates) contributed alongside institutional homebuying.

  • Significant net migration from high‑regulation states (CA, NY) to pro‑development states (esp. TX): From 2021–2024, California and New York had the worst net domestic migration in the U.S., while Texas repeatedly had the highest net domestic in‑migration. Census‑based estimates show California’s net domestic outflow at about −408k in 2021, −342k in 2022, and still strongly negative afterward, widely described as a “California exodus.”(en.wikipedia.org) Texas, meanwhile, added hundreds of thousands of residents annually, with domestic migration alone bringing roughly 193k people in 2021 and about 231k in 2022, and Texas ranking #1 nationally for net domestic migration in 2023 and 2024.(comptroller.texas.gov) This is consistent with Jason’s “massive movement” out of California/New York to states like Texas.

  • High‑regulation states relaxing zoning and development rules (including in and around Sacramento): Since 2021, California has passed multiple laws that materially weaken local NIMBY zoning. SB 9 (the California HOME Act), effective 2022, creates a statewide, by‑right process for duplexes and lot splits on most single‑family parcels, limiting cities’ ability to block such projects.(en.wikipedia.org) Sacramento went further, becoming an early city to end exclusive single‑family zoning and, in 2024, adopting a “Missing Middle Housing” ordinance that allows multi‑unit housing (up to 8–10 unit cottage courts, four‑plexes, etc.) in every former single‑family neighborhood.(sd11.senate.ca.gov) Other California cities such as Berkeley have also voted to end single‑family zoning in most of the city, explicitly to allow more duplexes and similar “middle housing.”(sfgate.com) Additional statewide reforms (SB 4 on faith‑based/higher‑ed land, CEQA streamlining) further tilt policy toward more building in exactly the kind of high‑regulation markets Jason referenced.(en.wikipedia.org)

  • Political backlash to institutional buyers of single‑family homes: While not a single, unified national crackdown, there has been clear, sustained political backlash: federal “Stop Wall Street Landlords” bills in 2022 and 2024 aimed at curbing tax benefits and access to federally backed financing for large investors in single‑family homes; state‑level proposals (e.g., Nebraska’s bill to bar out‑of‑state corporations from buying single‑family houses; New York’s 2025 proposal to delay and penalize hedge‑fund purchases); and widespread rhetoric from officials blaming “Wall Street landlords” and “shadowy private equity giants” for driving up housing costs.(khanna.house.gov) These moves are a direct response to institutional investors’ growing share of home purchases—around 15–25% of single‑family sales in recent years according to NAR/Redfin summaries.(nasdaq.com)

Netting this together: over the several years after mid‑2021, there was a large, measurable migration from high‑regulation states like California and New York to pro‑growth Sun Belt states such as Texas, and high‑regulation California in particular has implemented unusually aggressive zoning and permitting liberalization. Causality is overdetermined, but the specific future Jason painted—backlash to institutional accumulation of single‑family homes coinciding with either mass migration to places like Texas or a break in NIMBY zoning in places like Sacramento—matches the broad trajectory that actually unfolded. Hence the prediction is best judged as right in outcome, even if his suggested mechanism wasn’t the only driver.