We've inadvertently created substantial cost advantages for REITS: * Assuming that they never sell, they never pay capital gains taxes. Meanwhile, if I move a

We've inadvertently created substantial cost advantages for REITS: * Assuming that they never sell, they never pay capital gains taxes. Meanwhile, if I move and sell, I get hit now. * Ability to cross-collateralize a bunch of houses lets you tap into institutional capital. No pesky appraisal fees, no payoff for a mortgage broker, etc. Result is that their cost of capital is way below an individual's. * Better management -- ability to hire a bunch of actual skilled handymen to work across multiple properties means that they have specialization/ gains from scale. Typical homeowner is a jack of all trades who has to hire specialized talent which is vastly more expensive. * lots of pricing data with which to price as optimistically as possible. * ability to write off expenses So basically, tax regime changes have created the rise of the REIT.