I'm curious as to what town this is, and how many are bank-owned properties that haven't been unloaded yet. This sounds like an unusual situation, considering the places I have lived.
From 2013, 25% of acquisitions made by funds:
http://archive.azcentral.com/business/realestate/articles/20...
edit: no shortage of For Sale & empty homes up here, too. Multi-million dollar homes are stagnating on the market for years, and subsequently, plenty are for rent, too.
That number is slightly higher than average, but the situation isn't uncommon. In fact, it's common enough that the Federal Government itself is doing it too, in a dozen or so major markets (Atlanta, Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, etc)
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/25/governments-fannie-mae-will-b...
> I'm curious as to what town this is,
These are the stats from my small hometown specifically :
http://michiganradio.org/post/winners-and-losers-grand-rapid...
That's not really true. If you define "society" as "large groups of people", then they absolutely are buying and selling houses, and negotiating rental agreements.
In my hometown, over 50% of single-family houses are owned by major corporations. And some of those corporations are listed and traded, their stock exists in part inside wealthy and upper-middle-class people's 401Ks.
"Society" is absolutely buying up houses, and negotiating rental rates.