If people really thought that companies buying real estate might, at most, contribute a few percent of the price, while limited supply has led to price increases of hundreds of percent, then we'd be getting constant memes about insufficient house-building and pushes to change that, rather than this kind of thing.

I want to change the narrative, because if all people hear is "COMPANIES ARE BUYING UP HOUSES AND JACKING UP RENTS" they won't push for the policies which will have a bigger impact.

EDIT: Here is a chart of the ratio of population growth to house-building in the USA. Notice that it's increased from about 1.5 to about 2.5. That is a massive difference. A company with 17% of the homes in a city can squeeze residents in that city for 17% of its available housing if they don't mind sitting on an asset that isn't paying them anything.

Meanwhile, the population has increased by about 50%, but you only built homes for half that. That's a bigger effect even if you believe that companies are willing to sit on vast quantities of empty housing, which we know they're not.