A game of concentration: The intra-metropolitan geography of large single-family landlords across housing market types

Abstract

In the wake of the foreclosure crisis, investors purchased large quantities of discounted homes and positioned them as rentals. The mass entrance of these corporate landlords represents a shift from rental homes typically being operated by small-scale landlords, often households using rentals to supplement their income. These new landlords, in contrast, are profit-maximizing actors managing their portfolios to satisfy shareholder interests. Large corporate landlords have been linked to numerous negative outcomes, including escalating rents and deficient property conditions. These investors have been particularly active during the pandemic, outbidding prospective homebuyers with cash offers. While past research has focused on the largest of these investors, other entities, particularly private equity firms, have been particularly active in recent years. They have been buying in commonly examined markets like Atlanta, but also in less-studied housing markets, particularly in the Midwest. This paper examines the recent geography of the largest active single-family landlords in the US in a sample of urban counties reflecting different housing market dynamics, including the core counties of the Atlanta, Houston, and Las Vegas metro areas and Southeast Ohio. We examine the scale and location of these entities’ holdings and examine the degree to which they are concentrated in particular neighborhoods. While these landlords represent a small fraction of all US rental homes, their concentration in space may afford them the power to push rental prices in the neighborhoods in which they are active and crowds out home-buying opportunities historically accessible to moderate-income households.