Case in point: There are eight houses on my block. Pre-COVID, one was a multi-unit rental and the rest were single family.

Post COVID? Now only my house and my next door neighbor's house, and the lady's place on the far corner are privately owned. All five of the others sold and are now either short term rentals (2) or AirBNB's (3).

...In my shitty cracked out corner of America. Where there's even this bastard who runs motorcycles in his driveway all the time (i.e. me). Who the fuck is going to want to travel to and rent an AirBNB here? Nobody, that's who. There ain't nothing here but bikes, mud, guns, dirt, and fentanyl. So they're basically full-time empty. Some asshole or asshole(s) with capital decided this would be a great "passive income" opportunity and spent big bucks to squeeze out any private buyers. My only solace is that they've got to be getting raked over the coals now, because there's no way they make enough in rentals to cover the mortgages, utilities, and taxes.