New Case Study Reveals Systemic Real Estate Market Manipulation Driving U.S. Home Prices from 2020 to 2025

A comprehensive analysis showing how corporate and institutional buying drove housing inflation, affecting taxes, insurance, and affordability for millions

GREENSBORO, NC, UNITED STATES, February 4, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Independent researcher Jennifer Hoffman publishes an investigation tracing real estate market price inflation to institutional acquisitions, SPAC-funded expansion, and documented SEC-filed strategies by major market actors.

An extensive new case study authored by systems analyst and expert researcher Jennifer Hoffman examines how the U.S. single-family home market experienced unprecedented, artificial price inflation between 2020 and 2025, revealing structural manipulation far outside normal economic forces. The study traces the distortion to a combination of private equity capital, institutional purchasing, and SPAC-driven expansion, including the 2020 OpenDoor IPO through the Hedosophia SPAC led by Chamath Palihapitiya.

The resulting acquisition patterns created inflated sale prices and “above-market offers” that dramatically skewed comparable sales, property tax assessments, and homeowners’ insurance rates nationwide. Because inflated valuations disproportionately burden elderly homeowners, many of whom live on fixed incomes, these practices may also fall under state and federal elder-protection frameworks addressing elder financial abuse.

A Public-Impact Investigation Rooted in Documented Evidence
Hoffman began the research after receiving repeated above-market purchase solicitations for her own home -- offers she had never received before, in more than three decades as a homeowner. What started as a local question quickly expanded into a broad investigation involving :
• SEC filings and corporate disclosures
• A pattern of irregular real estate market gains of 50% to 100+% in many markets across the country
• Institutional acquisition trends across the US and short sales cycles
• Property tax and insurance valuation patterns matched to fraudulent home prices
• County-level revaluation practices that raised property taxes by 10% to 30% or more per year

Her findings were first submitted in a detailed 10-page letter to her county’s Board of Commissioners in early 2025. As a result of the evidence presented, the proposed property tax increase in her county was withdrawn.

“This affects every homeowner and potential buyer in America.”
“Millions of families were priced out of home ownership, hit with unaffordable property tax increases, or burdened with inflated homeowners’ insurance rate, not because of natural market activity that reflected basic economic principles, but because of coordinated financial activities that intentionally distorted the real estate market,” Hoffman states.
“I cannot stand by and watch lives be decimated by corporate greed and official collusion by silent proxy. Transparency is overdue and homeowners and buyers deserve to know what really happened from 2020 to 2025.”

A Readable, Accessible Public Resource
The 35 page case study is written for homeowners, journalists, policymakers, and housing professionals. It includes:
• A documented timeline of market manipulation and how it defied basic economic principles
• Evidence drawn from SEC filings, marketing messages, website archives, and extensive research on pricing, sales, and forced valuations
• How institutional buying inflated comparables across entire regions - by similar amounts
• Downstream impacts on property taxes and insurance valuations
• A homeowner-focused explanation of how the inflation occurred
• A methodology section for researchers and officials
• Clear recommendations for readers seeking to challenge unjust valuations

This case study offers the clarity that homeowners, communities, and policymakers have not been given. The forces that reshaped the single-family home market from 2020 to 2025 were not an isolated trend, they were system-level pressures driven by institutional capital, opaque financial structures, and valuation practices that reached into every corner of the country, simultaneously. By documenting these patterns in a clear and accessible way, this study provides the public with information they can use to challenge unfair assessments, question inflated insurance valuations, and better understand the true origins of the housing crisis.

It also offers a foundation for journalists, analysts, and officials who seek evidence-based insight into how these disruptions occurred and where accountability belongs. Above all, it aims to support the millions of people whose lives have been impacted by a market that did not reflect natural economic forces, and to help move the conversation toward transparency, fairness, and long-overdue reform.

About Jennifer Hoffman
Jennifer Hoffman is a systems analyst, investigator, author, and researcher with over 30 years of experience in corporate analysis, technology, and public-interest problem solving. She is known for her clear, accessible writing style, her ability to simplify complex systemic issues, and her 22-year history of public publishing with a global readership.

Jennifer Hoffman
Enlightening Life OmniMedia, Inc.
+1 336-897-6494
email us here
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