Corporate investors buying up Tampa Bay homes, report says

• The phone calls and mailers are a common strategy for investment companies to get their hands on houses, the report said.

Why it matters: The trend makes it harder for individual buyers to break into Tampa Bay's already competitive housing market by driving up prices and driving down supply, experts told the Times.

By the numbers: Investors own 27,000 homes across the three-county area, the Times found. The analysis linked 70% of those properties to investors backed by Wall Street and private equity.

Worthy of your time: Read the deep dive by reporters Teghan Simonton and Rebecca Liebson here.

• It's the first part of the newspaper's "Buying up the Bay" series that will examine the impact of the trend on tenants' rights, gentrification and other issues.