Hedge funds and property taxes

[Greg Powers]

Just saw an interesting article in Bloomberg News: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-23/wall-street-landlord-loses-round-one-in-ohio-school-tax-fight.html

Apparently Magnetar bought up a bunch of homes in Huber Heights, Ohio, because they already had management in place. Then they proceeded to request a reduction in property taxes by a much as $1.39 million, which would have stripped about $800,000 from an already-strapped school district budget.

My thought was: they might understand investments, but they apparently don't understand residential real estate. Seems to me that killing off the schools would make their properties less desirable.

What do you think?

(As an aside, they did set up an academy to teach financial literacy. I wonder why they just don't help fund the schools to teach that publicly, rather than through their own academy?)