How much of America’s housing is owned by corporations?
An analysis of 500 urban counties found that 1 in 11 parcels is corporate-owned, but the share is much higher in areas where “mega-investors” have proliferated.
Key points:
- Lincoln Institute of Land researchers found that corporations — which can include small, local buyers — own 8.9% of residential parcels in urban areas.
- In St. Louis, Baltimore, Miami and Richmond, that percentage is doubled, and across the Sun Belt, out-of-state investors make up an above-average share of corporate owners.
- “Mega-investors” — or entities that own 1,000 units or more — have grown quickly in the last decade, but policy pressure to regulate their activity has also gained momentum.
Who owns America? That's the question a new study on corporate ownership of housing seeks to answer. The report, released by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in November, offers more context to the complex — and often misunderstood and misrepresented — topic of investor activity and ownership.
By analyzing parcel-level data from nearly 500 urban counties, researchers sought to track corporate property ownership via LLCs, partnerships, trusts and other structures that often obscure true ownership in order to "create a consistent, nationwide methodology for classifying who owns what."
The result is one of the most comprehensive views to date of how and where corporate entities control residential property.
Where corporate, out-of-state ownership is highest
Lincoln Institute researchers found that nearly 9% of residential parcels in the urban counties studied — or roughly 1 in 11 — are owned by corporations. But "corporation" doesn't necessarily signify a large, national investor: Only 2.4% of parcels are owned by out-of-state companies, meaning the vast majority of America's homes remain in the hands of local, "mom and pop" investors.
The share of corporate ownership is much higher in some metros, however. In St. Louis, Baltimore, Miami and Richmond, corporations own between 17% and 21% of all residential parcels, driven mostly by in-state investors operating through LLCs. Manhattan is the most extreme case, with corporations owning more than 50% of residential parcels.
Out-of-state corporate buyers are especially active in fast-growing Sun Belt markets — an area that was also popular with pandemic-era iBuyers and independent flippers. In Charlotte, for example, 6.9% of all residential parcels are owned by out-of-state companies — nearly three times the national average and representing nearly a quarter of the city's rental inventory. Atlanta, Indianapolis and Kansas City show similar patterns.
The researchers noted that a single parcel in an urban area could represent one standalone home or a large, multi-unit apartment, so they focused on the concentration of corporate-owned homes across the U.S. rather than the specific number.
The rise of 'mega-investors'
Determining which companies own the most homes is challenging, the report authors explained, because "a single large corporation can own thousands of properties under hundreds of different LLCs across dozens of communities." While mom-and-pop investors still dominate, there has been a steady rise in the so-called "mega-investor."
"Prior to 2011, no single investor owned more than 1,000 single-family properties anywhere in the United States," the report indicates, highlighting research from the Government Accountability Office. A decade later, 32 institutional mega-investors "collectively owned 446,000 single-family homes across the country, with the five largest companies holding nearly 300,000 homes combined."
These big players include publicly traded companies like American Homes 4 Rent, which owned roughly 60,700 rental houses in 2024, and Invitation Homes, with more than 80,000 rentals in 2023. Both companies have a strong focus on the Sun Belt region.
Taking action to reclaim local ownership
State and local governments have begun taking more interest in investors' appetite for residential real estate — and are responding with legislation aimed at slowing or regulating investor activity, the report noted. New York, California, Texas and other states have introduced bills to cap how many homes large companies can own, and cities such as Baltimore and St. Louis have strengthened rental registries and code enforcement to increase transparency and accountability.
At the same time, nonprofits and municipalities are experimenting with buyback programs to return investor-owned homes to local ownership or affordable housing portfolios. In the Twin Cities, for example, nonprofits were able to purchase 345 homes from investment fund Pretium Partners before they hit the market. Another policy effort gaining momentum is offering tenants or nonprofits the right of first refusal when a landlord is preparing to sell. Such initiatives have been passed or expanded in Atlanta and Chicago in recent years.