Buying or selling a home is a significant financial decision, and it’s important to understand all the steps involved in the process. One crucial aspect of the home buying and selling process is title insurance. Title insurance is a form of protection that helps ensure that the property you are buying or selling has a clear title and that you are protected from any potential legal issues related to the property. In this blog post, we’ll provide a guide for home buyers and sellers in Buffalo on what title insurance is and how Buffalo Brick & Mortar LLC can help answer any questions you may have.
In today’s highly charged housing conversations, we often see passionate Facebook comments accusing real estate investors — like us — of being part of massive corporate machines like BlackRock. These concerns are understandable. Home prices are up, rents are rising, and there’s a lot of noise about institutional investors “buying up every house.”
So, let’s clear the air: we are not BlackRock.
Buffalo Brick & Mortar is a small, locally owned and operated real estate investment company. We’re based right here in Western New York. We live here. We work here. We reinvest in our community. We’re not part of some faceless national hedge fund trying to buy up whole neighborhoods.
Are Corporations Really Buying All the Houses?
Not quite. The idea that regular people can’t buy homes anymore because giant corporations are snatching them up is not backed by the data:
- Roughly 90% of single-family homes are still owned by individuals, not corporations.
- Corporate ownership of single-family rental homes peaked around 11.5% in 2014, and has since declined to about 10% in 2024.
- In Western New York specifically, the vast majority of homes are still owned and occupied by families, not institutions.
So, while corporate investment is happening (mostly in high-growth cities like Atlanta, Dallas, and Phoenix), it’s not the monster it’s made out to be in our region.
Why Are Houses So Expensive Then? Home prices are affected by many factors: low housing supply, high demand, inflation, labor shortages, rising material costs, and yes — some investor activity. But let’s not forget: many of the homes we buy are neglected, abandoned, or distressed. They often wouldn’t qualify for a mortgage without extensive repairs. We step in, invest our own money, take the risk, and bring them back to life. And yes — we make a profit. That doesn’t make us the bad guy. It makes us… a business.
The Real Issue: Ownership vs. Renting
Let’s get real for a second. Owning a home isn’t always the dream people make it out to be. Homeownership comes with:
- Surprise repairs
- Property taxes (that you’ll always pay — so do you ever really own it?)
- Upkeep and renovations
- Insurance
- Interest on mortgages
Renting offers flexibility, often lower up-front costs, and freedom from repair headaches. You don’t need to fix the roof, replace the furnace, or pay for a surprise sewer line break. For many, renting is the smarter long-term option — not a failure.
We don’t take homes from families — we take on the properties that have been left behind. The ones with mold, broken windows, leaking roofs, or decades of deferred maintenance. We buy them when no one else wants to. Then we put in the work, take on the financial risk, and turn them into homes that are safe, clean, and desirable again. That benefits buyers, neighbors, and the entire street — because when one home gets better, everything around it starts to rise with it.
We’re Not Wall Street. We’re Your Neighbors. This is personal to us. We’re not backed by hedge funds or operating from a Manhattan office tower. We’re Buffalo-based. We know the streets. We’ve walked them. We’ve built relationships here, invested our own money here, and we’re proud to be helping rebuild Western New York one house at a time.
Buffalo Brick & Mortar: real people, real investments, real impact.