Three Corporate Landlords Own Substantial Share of Metro Atlanta’s Rental Homes, Study Shows
A new study from Georgia State University and Rutgers University shows that three out-of-state corporate landlords own over 19,000 homes for rent in metro Atlanta, accounting for nearly 11% of the single-family rental market. Interestingly, these companies anonymize themselves with over 190 corporate aliases, making them resistant to legal liability or tenant accountability.
The Corporations in Question
The three landlords identified as owning a substantial share of Atlanta’s housing market are Invitation Homes, Pretium Partners, and Amherst Holdings. These companies use an extensive network of aliases registered to 74 different addresses across ten states and one territory to effectively anonymize their holdings and protect themselves from legal liability.
In the core metropolises of Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Cobb, and Clayton, Invitation Homes possess 7,861 homes, Pretium Partners control 7,171, and Amherst Holdings have 4,061.
The Problem with Anonymous Ownership
The pseudo-anonymous nature of these corporations’ holdings makes it difficult for city officials to enforce renter protections and address potential landlord-tenant issues. That’s because these corporate landlords use layers of limited liability companies, or shell companies, to hide their identities.
The researchers, Professors Taylor Shelton and Eric Seymour found that corporate landlords like these account for more than a third of recent single-family home purchases in the metro region. This incursion has led to a steep decline in housing affordability, leaving many prospective homebuyers in Atlanta unable to outbid cash-rich investors.
Coping with Corporate Landlords
Shelton and Seymour propose that local and state governments can deal with this housing challenge by understanding these properties and their owners as nodes in a broader relational network. In doing so, they argue, it will be possible to trace each of the different links to establish the full extent of a given ownership network and the geography of its holdings.
However, the state ban on landlord registries could pose a significant obstacle. Georgia law prohibits cities and counties from creating registries to track rent prices and log identifying information on landlords. Although the researchers don’t see their study as a roadmap to rental registries, they fear that some state lawmakers might.
The Way Forward
Currently, Georgia lawmakers are considering adopting legislation that would somewhat enhance tenant protections. House Bill 404, or the “Safe at Home Act,” aims to establish a basic level standard of habitability for rental properties across the state. However, critics point out that the bill does not even define “habitability.”
At the federal level, attempts to rein in corporate landlord influence on the housing market have so far been unsuccessful, and it is unclear whether any new measures will succeed amid election season chaos.
In essence, the growing influence of corporate landlords represents a significant challenge to Atlanta’s housing sector. It signifies a move away from owner-occupied housing and poses problems for local governance, housing affordability, and tenant rights. Solutions will require innovative strategies, robust legislation, and proactive enforcement on the part of city and state officials.
