When I say free money to the owners, I mean the primary effect on the market is only to increase the price, giving more money to sellers and more equity to owners. Without a significant increase in supply, it won't help much and giving 25k for single family homes would be counterproductive​ in general in my opinion. You want to fuck speculators and parasitic landlords, you do it by increasing supply. That can include a focused effort on high density and mixed use housing that the 25k doesn't help with.