But any other entity can? I mean I guess it's a start, but...

It's important to note that this law has been super watered-down. The cutoff is >=350 homes, so if the LLC holds 349, they're golden. In practice, this is easily gamed and skirted, and doesn't at all address most of the actual companies holding large numbers of single-family homes.

So it's working as intended. I often think an actual way to address this would be to double the tax burden for each additional house held by any company and its subsidiaries - double taxes for the second, quadrupled for the third, and so on. Sure, there's going to be a stark correction when all those homes hit the market but it's better than bleeding families dry on renting them, and I'm not going to shed tears for people who paid 50k on their house and expected to sell for a million

As someone who has friends in this space, yeah - this means nothing. LLCs are cheap, hell, I have a few in my name for various reasons. This is theater and changes nothing.

I've always thought a good approach might be to mandate rent-to-own agreements. Of course, that would also need to be paired with more robust renters' rights, to prevent companies from just evicting folks when the rental period is almost expired.

Could probably also add some sort of time element - the increase increases over time to also help push companies to sell their homes over time instead of all at once - plus maybe push people to sell 2nd and 3rd homes they're renting

The bill (which is now law) states that...

an investment fund, corporation, general or limited partnership, limited liability company, joint venture, association, or other for-profit entity that is a legal entity structured in a manner that is not aforementioned...

with at least 350 single family homes, "alone or in concert with 1 or more other entities", cannot "purchase, or enter into a contract to directly or indirectly purchase, any single-family home."

There are exempted purchases, and I'm not sure what exempts a purchase. But to answer your question, those are who are affected, not only private equity (but it'd be odd for any company that isn't private equity to own 350 single family homes).