I think you're conflating two events which are correlated with the pandemic and claiming The "boom" in housing sales is more like that decade-old canard about

I think you're conflating two events which are correlated with the pandemic and claiming The "boom" in housing sales is more like that decade-old canard about the "shortage" of software engineers. Many of those sales aren't to the average joe moving to bottom-of-the-barrel low cost areas. Rather the to urban professionals (and a small but increasing part to financial firms) who wish to reside in an area cheaper than those in major metropolitan areas without being too distant from them. In other words it's a new suburban exodus and white it had begun a few years ago, it's been catapulted forward by state quarantining policies and WFH. In addition, greater individual access to market data has allowed for deals to be made across state (and even international) lines. The housing stock hasn't increased, just the options of where to live. With regards to landlords, many don't have any guarantee that they'll have any new paying tenants, leave alone one that would subsidize the contractual violations of the previous tenants. As rent isn't infinitely elastic, landlords will likely have to sell their property to a financial holding company or a luxury property developer in order to recoup the losses sustained under the moratorium.