so my understanding is that home prices go up because homes are investments that can earn money, and one reason homes are investments is that you can rent them out. how much does landlording contribute to rising home costs, and how much of that contribution is from smaller landlords as opposed to banks and wall street? is "small landlords drive up home costs" a defensible argument i can make?
No it's not because small landlords have no real market power since they own too few buildings. They can (and will) only follow the market price
aren't they driving up prices with their aggregate demand? and they can afford to pay more because they'll have tenants paying for it