I don't begrudge any company investing and expanding their business, but when there are so many LLCs and layers of complexity to get problems resolved (as stated in the article) seems rather like an intentional obfuscation.

I recently set up a personal LLC and remember reading something about real estate investors making an individual LLC for each property as a way of limiting their liability. If you can't pay one mortgage then you still keep all your other homes. Those LLCs are then managed by another LLC.

It's also a way to shield yourself from tenant lawsuits. The extent of damages you can seek are the value of the house.

Huh - that makes sense then. I didn't consider the "limited liability" part of it :).

But what if.. one's existing capital isn't a right to exercise to begin with?

"Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit." - from Wikipedia, but that's more or less the classic definition. I think there are many potent critiques of a poorly regulated capitalist environment one can make without twisting the definition.

Housing is something that has been spectacularly fucked in the US for historical reasons - white flight, zoning, redlining, Reagan-era policies to enrich the white burbs in perpetuity. Most of the policies that are aiding property speculators and mass landlords were intended to help "grandma keep her house," and keep "those kinds of folks" away. Naturally business noticed that this was an insanely good deal for the American homeowner and decided to get in on it, and in a large-business friendly regulatory environment we have a hard time making the case that these companies are doing something wrong.