I am agreeing with you regarding promoting high density housing. I do wish government would allow you to discriminate with regard to affordable housing, not with respect to race, religion, age, gender identify, but my wife and I would like to build some high-density low-income housing for low wage workers (regardless of age). We need low wage workers in our service industries, but they need a place to live. I don't mind earning less, if I know I am renting to people that make our community better.

Others need housing to, but if you don't have a job, you can move to places with much lower cost housing than Orange County, so subsidizing someone to enjoy our beautiful weather is not really very appealing.

Regarding competing against Zillow, they are exiting the home buying business having lost more than $500 million. Investing in real estate can be a win lose proposition.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/02/homes/zillow-exit-ibuying-home-business/index.html

Investors provide "liquidity" to a market, but home buyers are the ones driving up home prices. We have been "priced out" of the market by homebuyers over the last few years.

We work with home investors (managing their properties), they invest for three reasons, first, they feel it is safer than stocks long term (a myth, but still a belief) and it earns them a monthly rate of return (rent less expenses). Lastly, for those in the high tax brackets, the income is deferred by depreciation and later taxed as capital gains. But homeowners have a huge edge.

As a homebuyer, you get better borrowing rates than investors and you view the house as "a home" and an investment, so you are often willing to pay it bit more, since you will "enjoy" the home while living there. You will take better care of it, then tenants would reducing the costs to maintain it. You won't pay someone a leasing commission or worry about the home being empty for a month or two every two to three years.

Many homeowners do the minor repairs themselves saving them the cost of expensive contractors. But as result of banking reform led by Elizabeth Warren, the average homeowner is four years older than they were before her reform... some of her reforms made sense but the huge down payment required today means it takes people longer to save up that down payment.

Secondly, the government took away some of the deduction for property taxes and mortgage interest for homebuyers, restoring that deduction for first time homebuyers would help them buy their first home. On the bright side, homebuyers get a huge tax advantage when they sell their homes.

Government has a way of overreacting. A young couple with a good income properly documented can afford to spend 25% of their income on a house. I would allow them to borrow up to 90% of the lowest estimated value of a home over the last 5 years (this protects the lender from lending 90% on a house whose price has suddenly run up due to local conditions and then subsequently crashes).

Biden's policies are turning the whole investment market upside down. Will people want to buy houses they expect to drop in value? Will housing attract investor money as fixed income investments like CDs and bonds are offering better yields. The stock market is down more than 20-30%... will housing prices follow a similar path.

Housing is a very local market, and some markets are already falling while few remain robust. But my guess is homeowners will be begging for investors to "stay involved in real estate" or the value of their homes will fall below their mortgages.