RENTAL HOUSING
Information on
Institutional
Investment in Single-
Family Homes
Report to Congressional Committees
May 2024
GAO-24-106643
United States Government Accountability Office
United States Government Accountability Office
Highlights of GAO-24-106643, a report to
congressional
committees
May 2024
RENTAL HOUSING
Information on Institutional Investment in Single
-
Family
Homes
What GAO Found
Large “institutional” investors emerged in the wake of the 2007–2009 financial
crisis, bulk-purchasing foreclosed homes at auction and converting them into
rental housing. Aided by access to capital through various sources, institutional
investors had a funding advantage over smaller investors at a time when
mortgage lenders were generally reducing lending. Additionally, technological
advancements allowed companies to acquire and manage large portfolios of
single-family homes more easily.
Institutional investors initially relied on bulk purchases but then shifted to making
smaller-scale purchases, merging with other investors, or building homes for
rent. These activities have contributed to their growth over time. Studies GAO
reviewed found that no investor owned 1,000 or more single-family rental homes
as of late 2011. However, by 2015, institutional investors collectively owned an
estimated 170,000-300,000 homes. As of June 2022, institutional investors of
varying sizes made up a large portion of the single-family rental market in many
cities, particularly in Sunbelt states.
Estimated Share of the Single-Family Rental Market Held by Investors with over 1,000 Homes
in Selected Areas, as of 2022
Note: For more details, see fig.6 in GAO-24-106643.
Studies GAO reviewed found that institutional investors may have contributed to
increasing home prices and rents and helped stabilize neighborhoods following
the financial crisis. However, information on these investors’ effects on
homeownership opportunities and tenants (e.g., eviction rates) was unclear
because data are limited and there is no consistent definition of institutional
investor.
View GAO-24-106643. For more information,
contact
Jill Naamane at (202) 512-8678 or
naa
Why GAO Did This Study
M
illions of homeowners defaulted on
their mortgages
during the 2007–2009
financial crisis
. Institutional investors
(i.e.,
companies that own a large
number of single
-family rental homes)
gr
ew large portfolios of single-family
homes and convert
ed them to rental
properties to help meet growing
demand for rental housing. However,
more recently, low housing supply and
elevated housing prices and rents have
raised questions about the effect of
institutional investors on the housing
market and renters.
The
Joint Explanatory Statement
accompanying the
Consolidated
Appropriations Act, 2023
, includes a
provision for GAO to r
eport on the
prevalence
and types of institutional
investors
and their effect on single-
family
rental housing.
This report provides information on (1)
institutional investors in single
-family
rental housing and (2) reported
effects
of
institutional investment on housing
markets and residents
. GAO reviewed
74
studies that examined institutional
investment in single
-family housing,
including scholarly articles and
research reports
from governmental
and nongovernmental organizations
.
GAO
also interviewed agency officials
and representatives of consumer
advocacy, industry, and research
organizations selected for their
knowledge
in this area.
Page i GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
Letter 1
Background 2
Institutional Investors in Single-Family Rental Housing 9
Literature on Possible Effects of Investment in Single-Family
Rental Housing 17
Agency Comments 25
Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 27
Appendix II GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgements 29
Bibliography 30
Figures
Figure 1: U.S. Homeownership Rate, 2000–2023 3
Figure 2: U.S. Rentership Rate, 2000–2023 4
Figure 3: Average Mortgage Borrower Credit Scores at Origination
for Large Bank Lenders, 2012–2023 5
Figure 4: Average Interest Rate, Fixed-Rate 30-Year Mortgages,
2020–2023 6
Figure 5: National Average Home Price Changes, 2000–2023 7
Figure 6: Estimated Share of the Single-Family Rental Market
Held by Investors with over 1,000 Homes, in Selected
Areas as of 2022 16
Contents
Page ii GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
Abbreviation
REO Real Estate Owned
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Page 1 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
441 G St. N.W.
Washington, DC 20548
May 22, 2024
The Honorable Brian Schatz
Chair
The Honorable Cindy Hyde-Smith
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development,
and Related Agencies
Committee on Appropriations
United States Senate
The Honorable Steve Womack
Chairman
The Honorable Mike Quigley
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development,
and Related Agencies
Committee on Appropriations
House of Representatives
Millions of homeowners defaulted on their mortgages during and
immediately following the financial crisis of 2007–2009. Large
“institutional” investors with access to cash or low-cost financing
purchased foreclosed single-family homes at a discount at auctions
across the country.
1
These investors were able to grow large portfolios of
single-family housing and help meet the growing demand for rental
housing. In the years since the financial crisis, the share of single-family
rental housing owned by investors of all sizes has grown. Low supply and
elevated housing prices and rents have raised questions about the effects
that investors—particularly large institutional investors—have on the
housing market and renters.
The Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying the Consolidated
Appropriations Act, 2023, includes a provision for GAO to study and issue
a report on the prevalence and location of institutional investors in single-
family homes, the types of institutional investors involved, and the effects
of such investments on both the housing market and on the tenants
1
Institutional investors are variously defined in the literature. We note specific definitions
as applicable. However, they generally are the largest investors in the market. Unless
otherwise noted, single-family housing refers to residences with one to four dwelling units.
Apartments (or multifamily housing) are residences with five or more dwelling units.
Letter
Page 2 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
residing in the homes. This report provides information on (1) institutional
investors in single-family rental housing, and (2) reported effects of this
investment on housing markets and residents.
To address both objectives, we conducted a literature search of research
published from 2005–2023 that examined institutional investment in
single-family rental housing. We reviewed and summarized the findings of
the 74 studies determined to be relevant to our objectives and evaluated
them to ensure the quality and robustness of their methodologies. The
bibliography at the end of this report lists these studies.
We also interviewed officials from the Department of Housing and Urban
Development, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Fannie Mae, Freddie
Mac, one consumer advocacy organization, two organizations of industry
professionals, and three research organizations. We selected these
entities because the literature and our interviews identified them as
having knowledge of single-family rental housing. To identify the largest
institutional investors in single-family rental housing as of the end of 2022,
we reviewed relevant literature, industry reports, and company websites.
We also used these sources to identify and describe the investment
strategies of these companies.
Finally, we analyzed market data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St.
Louis to provide background information on homeownership and
rentership rates, home prices and rents, borrower credit scores, and
mortgage interest rates. We found these data to be reliable for describing
these trends. See appendix I for more information on our scope and
methodology.
We conducted this performance audit from February 2023 to May 2024 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives.
The national homeownership rate peaked at about 70 percent in the
years before the financial crisis and reached a 30-year low (approximately
63 percent) in 2016. Since 2016, the rate has risen, reaching around 66
percent toward the end of 2023 (see fig. 1).
Background
Housing Market Trends
Page 3 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
Figure 1: U.S. Homeownership Rate, 2000–2023
Note: The homeownership rate is the proportion of total households (owners and renters) who own a
home. Underlying data are from the U.S. Census Bureau, Homeownership Rate in the United States.
Shaded areas indicate U.S. recessions. According to Census, estimates for 2020 likely are subject to
significant nonresponse bias resulting to data collection difficulties arising from the COVID-19
pandemic. These estimates should be read with caution as they may be inconsistent with
benchmarks and administrative data or may have changed in unexpected magnitudes.
Conversely, the rentership rate steadily increased following the financial
crisis, dipping slightly and then recovering following the COVID-19
recession (see fig. 2). As we reported in 2020, the estimated rentership
rate fell below 33 percent in 2004—the lowest in U.S. history—then
climbed to 37 percent in 2013, a rate not seen since the 1960s. By 2017,
almost 7 million more households rented their homes than in 2001, which
brought the rentership rate to an estimated 36 percent.
2
2
See GAO, Rental Housing: As More Households Rent, the Poorest Face Affordability and
Housing Quality Challenges, GAO-20-427 (Washington, D.C.: May 27, 2020).
Page 4 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
Figure 2: U.S. Rentership Rate, 2000–2023
Note: The rentership rate is the proportion of total households (owners and renters) who rent a home.
Underlying data are from the U.S. Census Bureau, Homeownership Rate in the United States.
Shaded areas indicate U.S. recessions. According to Census, estimates for 2020 likely are subject to
significant nonresponse bias resulting to data collection difficulties arising from the COVID-19
pandemic. These estimates should be read with caution as they may be inconsistent with
benchmarks and administrative data or may have changed in unexpected magnitudes.
Several factors account for trends in the number of homeowners and
renters from 2000 through 2023, including changes in household
demand, housing stock and supply, and prices and rents.
Household demand. As a result of the 2007–2009 financial crisis and
ensuing housing crash, an estimated 3.8 million households lost their
homes to foreclosure. Many of these households entered the rental
market, driving up demand for rental housing.
3
Tighter lending standards in the years since the financial crisis and the
recent sharp increases in mortgage interest rates have also contributed to
3
See Sharada Dharmasankar and Bhashkar Mazumder, “Have Borrowers Recovered
from Foreclosures during the Great Recession?” Chicago Fed Letter, no. 370 (2016). This
estimate includes foreclosures from 2007 through 2010 and is based on data from the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York Consumer Credit Panel/Equifax and statistics from
RealtyTrac.
Page 5 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
the steady increase in demand for rental housing. Mortgage originations
(i.e., new mortgages) declined sharply in the years following the financial
crisis.
4
Additionally, the average borrower credit score at origination was
719 in 2007.
5
However, it has remained above 750 since 2012 (see fig.
3).
Figure 3: Average Mortgage Borrower Credit Scores at Origination for Large Bank Lenders, 2012–2023
Note: Data are through the third quarter of 2023 and represent the average (50th percentile)
consumer credit score for first-lien originations at large banks (generally, institutions with assets of
$100 billion or more). Large banks are one of many types of mortgage lenders. Average borrower
credit score at origination may vary by lender type. Scores were at origination for commercially
available credit scores. Only mortgage accounts with credit scores between 150 and 950 are included
in these 50th percentile calculations. These data include total bank loans originated and held in
portfolio on a given quarter, including those that will later be sold or securitized. Shaded areas
indicate U.S. recessions.
4
See Andrew Haughwout, Donghoon Lee, Joelle Scally, and Wilbert van der Klaauw, Just
Released: Releveraging the Consumer Credit Panel with Two New Charts (New York,
N.Y.: Liberty Street Economics and Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Aug. 13, 2015).
The New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel is a database with information from consumer
credit reports. Here we use the term “mortgage originations” consistent with the panel,
which measured mortgage originations by the appearance of new mortgage balances,
including refinanced mortgages, on consumer credit reports. Furthermore, the panel
defines mortgage accounts to include mortgage installment loans, including first
mortgages, and home equity installment loans, both of which are closed-end loans. The
definition excludes home equity lines of credit.
5
Haughwout et al., Just Released.
Page 6 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
Additionally, mortgage interest rates increased substantially in the years
following the COVID-19 recession, raising the effective cost of
homeownership and the demand for rental housing (see fig. 4).
Figure 4: Average Interest Rate, Fixed-Rate 30-Year Mortgages, 2020–2023
Note: Underlying data are from Freddie Mac and are limited to applications submitted to Freddie Mac.
Shaded areas indicate U.S. recessions.
Stock and supply. The U.S. experienced a decline of an estimated 1.2
million owner-occupied units from 2006 through 2013.
6
At the same time,
vacant and renter-occupied units increased substantially. These changes
can be attributed in part to “tenure conversions”—that is, ownership units
converted to rental units, such as those converted through foreclosures. A
second factor was a sharp decline in the construction of new homes
beginning in 2006. Freddie Mac estimated that the deficit of housing
(ownership and rental) was about 3.8 million units as of 2020.
7
6
See GAO, Housing: Preliminary Analysis of Homeownership Trends for Nine Cities,
GAO-20-544R (Washington, D.C.: June 25, 2020).
7
Freddie Mac, “Housing Supply: A Growing Deficit,” Research Note (May 7, 2021).
Page 7 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
Prices and rents. These housing demand and supply changes
contributed to steady average home-price increases at the national level
following the financial crisis (see fig. 5).
Figure 5: National Average Home Price Changes, 2000–2023
Note: Home-price index January 2000 = 100. Underlying home-price data are from the Standard and
Poor’s Dow Jones Indices LLC and Standard and Poor’s Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price
Index and are not adjusted for inflation. Shaded areas indicate U.S. recessions.
These changes also contributed to steady increases in average rents at
the national level over the same period. Specifically, the average nominal
rent more than doubled from 2000 through 2023.
A mortgage loan becomes delinquent when a borrower fails to make a
periodic payment by its scheduled due date.
8
When the loan becomes
delinquent, it may be considered in default at that time or when payment
8
As defined in Regulation X, a borrower and a borrower’s mortgage loan obligation are
delinquent beginning on the date a periodic payment sufficient to cover principal, interest,
and, if applicable, escrow becomes due and unpaid, until such time as no periodic
payment is due and unpaid. 12 C.F.R. § 1024.31. State laws may also include definitions
of delinquency that vary from one another and from Regulation X.
Foreclosure and Real
Estate Owned Disposition
Processes
Page 8 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
is not made during any applicable grace period.
9
When the loan becomes
delinquent, a servicer may provide loss mitigation options to the borrower
in an effort to avoid foreclosure.
10
While the foreclosure process is
generally governed by state law, in the event any loss mitigation options
offered are unsuccessful, the servicer may commence the foreclosure
process, which may include auctioning the property. If no third party
purchases the home during the foreclosure process, the home then
becomes the property of the note holder as part of a real estate owned
(REO) inventory, as we have previously reported.
11
REO properties may
be sold through the note holder’s own platform or through real estate
agents’ Multiple Listing Service.
The federal government took several steps to stabilize the economy in
response to the 2007–2009 financial crisis. For example, the Federal
Housing Finance Agency launched the REO-to-Rental Initiative pilot
program in 2012 to help stabilize the housing market and meet the
growing renter demand in the wake of the financial crisis.
12
The program
allowed pre-qualified investors to bid on large portfolios of foreclosed
properties owned by Fannie Mae. Winning bidders were able to purchase
9
State laws generally define default, which may vary by loan type and lien position. As we
have previously reported, no uniform definition exists across the lending industry
regarding the amount of delinquency that results in a default. See GAO, COVID-19
Housing Protections: Mortgage Forbearance and Other Federal Efforts Have Reduced
Default and Foreclosure Risks, GAO-21-554 (Washington, D.C.: July 12, 2021).
10
Mortgage servicing rules under Regulation X require servicers to make good faith efforts
to notify borrowers of loss mitigation options, to the extent those options are made
available by the servicer, soon after the borrower becomes delinquent. However,
Regulation X does not require a servicer to offer any loss mitigation options or foreclosure
avoidance relief. 12 C.F.R. part 1024, subpart C. State laws may also require certain
notifications to delinquent borrowers.
11
For more information, see GAO, Federal Housing Administration: Improving Disposition
and Oversight Practices May Increase Returns on Foreclosed Property Sales,
GAO-13-542 (Washington, D.C.: June 20, 2013).
12
The Federal Housing Finance Agency is responsible for supervising and regulating
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guarantee most U.S.
mortgages. Loan guarantees reduce risk for lenders who make the loans and investors
who may purchase them, making loans more affordable to homebuyers. Loans
guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are known as conventional loans.
REO-to-Rental Initiative
and Investor Loans
Page 9 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
properties under the stipulation that they be rented for a specified number
of years.
13
In addition, in 2017, Fannie Mae backed a 10-year, $1 billion loan to
Invitation Homes (one of the largest investors in single-family rental
housing) to purchase and manage single-family rental homes. Freddie
Mac subsequently launched a pilot program designed to provide liquidity
and stability for mid-sized investors (generally those with 50–2,000
properties) and uniform credit standards on loans for single-family rental
properties. The Federal Housing Finance Agency directed Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac to terminate these initiatives in 2018 following their
assessment that large institutional investors in single-family rental
housing did not require additional liquidity.
Institutional investors in single-family rental housing emerged from the
2007–2009 financial crisis, leveraging access to capital and new
technologies to purchase large numbers of foreclosed homes and convert
them to rental housing.
14
Several institutional investors entered the U.S
single-family rental housing market following the financial crisis, including
American Homes 4 Rent, Colony Capital, Invitation Homes (a Blackstone
13
Through the pilot, Fannie Mae sold about 1,800 homes to three winning bidders
(Pacifica Companies LLC, Cogsville Group LLC, and Invitation Homes) in Arizona,
California, Illinois, Florida, and Nevada.
14
Meredith Abood, Securitizing Suburbia: The Financialization of Single-Family Rental
Housing and the Need to Redefine “Risk” (Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, June 2017); Brett Christophers, “How and Why U.S. Single-Family Housing
Became an Investor Asset Class,” Journal of Urban History, vol. 49, no. 2 (2023): 430–
449; Desiree Fields, “Constructing a New Asset Class: Property-Led Financial
Accumulation after the Crisis,” Economic Geography, vol. 94. no. 2 (2018): 118–140;
James Mills, Raven Molloy, and Rebecca Zarutskie, “Large-Scale Buy-to-Rent Investors in
the Single-Family Housing Market: The Emergence of a New Asset Class,” Real Estate
Economics, vol. 47, no. 2 (2019): 399–430; and Sara Ozogul and Tuna Tasan-Kok, “One
and the Same? A Systematic Literature Review of Residential Property Investor Types,”
Journal of Planning Literature, vol. 35, no .4 (2020): 475–494.
Institutional Investors
in Single-Family
Rental Housing
How did institutional
investors emerge?
Page 10 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
portfolio company until January 2019), Progress Residential, Starwood
Capital, and Waypoint Real Estate Group.
15
Availability of Foreclosed Homes. As a result of the financial crisis,
large numbers of foreclosed homes were sold at local auctions and
through Fannie Mae’s REO-to-Rental Initiative.
16
Historically, institutional
investors had avoided the single-family housing market. They viewed
engaging in individual transactions and managing geographically diverse
assets as too costly and challenging. According to one study, before the
financial crisis began in 2007, investors owned about 10 million single-
family rental units in the U.S., consisting mostly of smaller investors who
owned 10 or fewer units. As of late 2011, no single investor in the U.S.
owned more than 1,000 units.
17
However, local foreclosure auctions that sold large numbers of properties
in the same day became prevalent. This gave institutional investors
pricing power over rents in those markets and opportunities to realize
economies of scale in managing their properties. Similarly, institutional
investors purchased properties in bulk through Fannie Mae’s REO-to-
Rental Initiative in Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, and Nevada. These
were some of the areas most affected by the financial crisis.
18
According
to Federal Housing Finance Agency officials, the estimated 2,500 homes
sold through the program were in weaker for-sale markets where Fannie
Mae had a large portfolio of occupied REO properties. By 2015,
institutional investors that entered the market during the financial crisis
owned an estimated 170,000–300,000 single-family housing units (about
15
Christophers, “How and Why” and Mills, “Large-Scale Buy-to-Rent Investors.” As
previously discussed, Pacifica Companies and Cogsville Group participated in Fannie
Mae’s REOs to Rentals program, but neither investor accumulated more than 1,000
properties under the program.
16
Federal Housing Finance Agency officials said the agency's preference is to sell REO
properties to owner-occupant purchasers through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's First
Look programs, which gives preference to owner-occupant buyers in the first 30 days of
marketing the properties for sale.
17
Christophers, “How and Why.”
18
Federal Housing Finance Agency, 2011 Report to Congress (Washington, D.C.: June
2012).
Page 11 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
1–2 percent of the single-family rental housing stock), according to some
studies we reviewed.
19
Access to Capital and Mortgage Credit. The majority of buyers at
foreclosure auctions purchased homes in cash, which gave larger
investors an advantage over smaller investors and individual buyers.
Large investors were able to leverage funding sources such as private
equity funds, public equity and debt securities, securitization of rental
income, and government-backed loans.
20
At the same time, mortgage
lenders were tightening standards (e.g., requiring higher credit scores)
and generally reducing lending. As a result, fewer potential homebuyers
were able to qualify for mortgages in the years following the financial
crisis, and sellers often preferred cash offers over those that relied on
mortgage approval.
Technological Advancements. Advancements in technology also aided
the emergence of institutional investors in single-family housing by
making it easier for companies to acquire and manage portfolios. In its
2018 annual report, American Homes 4 Rent stated that the challenge of
efficiently scaling the acquisition and management of many individual
homes was the primary reason large-scale investment in single-family
housing did not develop sooner.
21
Further, in its 2022 annual report,
American Homes 4 Rent stated that in-house property management
19
This range is based on data reported in Desiree Fields, Rajkumar Kohli, and Alex
Schafran, The Emerging Economic Geography of Single-Family Rental Securitization,
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Working Paper Series 2016-02 (San Francisco,
Calif.: 2016) and Laurie Goodman and Robert Abare, Why the Single-Family Rental
Merger Won’t Hurt Homebuyers or Renters (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 2017).
Differences in estimates are a result of differences in how each study defined institutional
investor and the number of estimated single-family rental units in the U.S. at the time each
study was conducted.
20
Private equity is a type of private fund that generally pools money from institutional and
individual investors and invests in companies that are often not publicly traded. Equity
securities are financial assets that represent shares of ownership in a company, such as
common stock. Debt securities, such as bonds, are financial assets that define the terms
of a loan between an issuer (the borrower) and an investor (the lender). Asset
securitization is the structured process whereby streams of income are packaged,
underwritten, and sold in the form of asset-backed securities. Specifically, single-family
rental securitizations use residential properties as collateral for the securities, but the
underlying bond payments are backed by rental cash flows. As discussed earlier, Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac operated programs from 2017 to 2018 to provide loans to single-
family rental investors. Through these programs, Fannie Mae made one $1 billion loan to
a single institutional investor, and Freddie Mac made a total of $1.3 billion in loans to
multiple investors, generally with portfolios of 2,000 or fewer properties.
21
American Homes 4 Rent, 2018 Annual Report (Agoura Hills, Calif.: 2019).
Page 12 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
enabled it to optimize rental revenues, effectively manage expenses,
realize significant economies of scale, standardize brand consistency,
and maintain direct contact with its tenants.
22
Some key technological
advancements included the following:
• Digital platforms enable the efficient identification and purchase of
properties that fit investors’ investment criteria.
23
According to one
article, these platforms are organized around data fed into a
proprietary underwriting algorithm. In combination with target
investment return and other investor specifications, the algorithm
identifies desirable properties and generates prices.
24
• Online management portals allow prospective tenants to search and
apply for units and enable existing tenants to pay rent and submit
maintenance requests. These technology tools allow institutional
investors to manage geographically dispersed rental housing
portfolios on a large scale.
25
As foreclosure rates declined, institutional investors used other strategies
to acquire single-family homes. For example, one study noted that
institutional investors pursued smaller-scale purchases, including
purchasing one home at a time through brokers or listing services, such
as the Multiple Listing Service.
26
An industry representative we
interviewed said that more recent institutional investor purchases of
single-family homes are overwhelmingly conducted through the Multiple
Listing Service or local brokers given more limited opportunities to buy
foreclosed homes. Other studies described how institutional investors
22
American Homes 4 Rent, 2022 Annual Report (Las Vegas, Nev.: 2023).
23
For example, see Rohan Ganduri, Steven Chong Xiao, and Serena Wenjing Xiao,
“Tracing the Source of Liquidity for Distressed Housing Markets,” Real Estate Economics,
vol. 51 (2023): 408–440; and Megan Nethercote, “Build-to-Rent and the Financialization of
Rental Housing: Future Research Directions,” Housing Studies, vol. 35, no. 5 (2020): 839–
874.
24
Desiree Fields, “Automated Landlord: Digital Technologies and Post-Crisis Financial
Accumulation,” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, vol. 54, no. 1 (2022):
160–181.
25
Abood, Securitizing Suburbia.
26
Desiree Fields and Manon Vergerio, Corporate Landlords and Market Power: What
Does the Single-Family Rental Boom Mean for Our Housing Future? (Berkeley, Calif.:
University of California Press, Apr. 2022).
How have institutional
investors changed since
the financial crisis?
Page 13 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
leverage existing technology platforms to efficiently identify and purchase
single or small numbers of properties that fit their investment criteria.
27
Some studies stated that institutional investors turned to acquisitions of
and mergers with other investors as the single-family market matured,
resulting in industry consolidation.
28
For example, one study found that
the industry’s five largest investors in 2013 had consolidated into two
firms by 2017.
29
Finally, other institutional investors have recently pursued
“build-to-rent” models. These investors work with developers to build
communities of homes that will be rented once construction is complete.
30
An industry representative told us this approach helps meet increasing
demand for rental housing without affecting homeownership
opportunities. However, Federal Housing Finance Agency officials said
that the build-to-rent model affects homeownership opportunities because
those homes could alternatively be sold to owner-occupiers.
Most market trends analyses we reviewed defined institutional investors
as those owning 1,000 or more properties. According to one estimate, by
June 2022, 32 investors each owned more than 1,000 single-family
properties in the U.S. Collectively, this totaled nearly 450,000 homes, or
about 3 percent of all single-family rental homes nationally.
31
Based on
our analysis of publicly available information, as of the end of 2022, the
five largest investors owned about 300,000 homes, or nearly 2 percent of
all single-family rental homes nationally.
27
Fields, “Automated Landlord”; Christophers, “How and Why” and Mills, “Large-Scale
Buy-to-Rent Investors.”
28
For example, see Suzanne Lanyi Charles, “The Financialization of Single-Family Rental
Housing: An Examination of Real Estate Investment Trusts’ Ownership of Single-Family
Houses in the Atlanta Metropolitan Area,” Journal of Urban Affairs, vol. 42, no. 8 (2020):
1321–1341; Fields, Desiree and Vergerio, Corporate Landlords and Market Power.
29
Christophers, “How and Why.” See also Colburn et al., “Capitalizing on Collapse.”
30
Colburn et al., “Capitalizing on Collapse”; Fields, Desiree and Vergerio, Corporate
Landlords and Market Power.
31
Laurie Goodman, Amalie Zinn, Kathryn Reynolds, and Eleanor Noble, A Profile of
Institutional Investor-Owned Single-Family Rental Properties, (Washington, D.C.: Urban
Institute, Apr. 2023). See also Cameron Ehrlich, Tim McDonald, and L. David Vertz,
“Institutional Investors: A Local Perspective,” Evidence Matters, Department of Housing
and Urban Development Office of Policy Development and Research (Winter 2023).
How many homes do
institutional investors own
and where are they
located?
Page 14 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
The literature we reviewed found that institutional investors have
consistently invested in high-growth and geographically concentrated
areas.
32
• According to one study, geographic concentration of institutional
investment in single-family rental units in the Sunbelt region following
the financial crisis reflected both foreclosure activity and the
expectation of price recovery for comparatively newer homes in this
region. In supporting their argument, the authors noted that some
areas outside the Sunbelt with high foreclosure rates, such as New
Jersey and Michigan, had virtually no single-family rental purchase
activity.
33
Similarly, another study observed that low housing prices
coupled with a strong rental demand motivated institutional investors
to purchase units in particular cities.
34
More recently, our review of
publicly available information found that three of the largest
institutional investors reported targeting areas experiencing growth in
population, employment, and rental demand.
35
• Some studies found that institutional investors cluster or concentrate
their home purchases in certain metropolitan areas to achieve
operational efficiency and cost savings through economies of scale.
36
For example, Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte, and Houston were among the
cities with the largest number of single-family rental homes owned by
investors with more than 1,000 homes, as of 2022.
37
• One study noted that institutional investors want their single-family
rentals within a given market to be densely concentrated because that
32
Ehrlich, “Institutional Investors”; Goodman et al., A Profile; and Madhuri Sharma and
Mikhail Samarin, “Rental Tenure and Rent Burden: Progress in Interdisciplinary
Scholarship and Pathways for Geographical Research,” GeoJournal, vol. 87 (2022):
3403–3421.
33
Fields, et al., The Emerging Economic.
34
Colburn et al., “Capitalizing on Collapse.”
35
Among the five largest institutional investors, three offer publicly traded stock and are
required to submit annual reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission. We
reviewed these three company’s annual reports, which included discussion of their
investment strategies. See American Homes 4 Rent: 2022 Annual Report. Invitation
Homes, 2022 Annual Report (Dallas, Tex.: 2023). Tricon Residential, 2022 Annual Report
(Toronto, Ontario, Canada: 2023).
36
Charles, “The Financialization of Single-Family Rental Housing.” See also Fields and
Vergerio, “Corporate Landlords and Market Power.”
37
Ehrlich, “Institutional Investors”; and Goodman et al., A Profile.
Page 15 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
creates efficiencies in acquisition, maintenance, and leasing.
38
The
study said such density was necessary for single-family rentals to be
as cost-efficient investments as multi-family rentals.
The Sunbelt cities that initially experienced an influx of institutional
investment following the financial crisis continue to have the largest
amount of institutional investment (see fig. 6).
39
For example, our analysis
of data from one study shows that, as of June 2022, regions with the
heaviest concentration of institutional investment were Atlanta,
Jacksonville, and Charlotte. In these markets, institutional investor-owned
homes constituted about 25 percent, 21 percent, and 18 percent of the
single-family rental market, respectively.
40
38
Charles, “The Financialization of Single-Family Rental Housing.”
39
Fields and Vergerio, “Corporate Landlords and Market Power”; Ehrlich, McDonald, and
Vertz, “Institutional Investors: A Local Perspective”; and Fields, “Constructing a New Asset
Class.”
40
The study found that institutional investors owned almost 72,000 single-family rental
homes in Atlanta, Ga.; 33,000 homes in Phoenix, Ariz.; and 27,000 homes in Dallas, Tex.,
as of 2022. Goodman et al., A Profile. Market-share percentages may be overstated for
two reasons: (1) the numerator (i.e., the number of single-family rental homes owned in
each city by investors with more than 1,000 homes) includes vacant properties, while data
in the denominator (i.e., the total number of single-family rental homes in each city)
excludes vacant properties; and (2) data in the numerator are from 2022, while data in the
denominator are from 2021, which likely overstates ownership by excluding any new
single-family rental housing supply that entered the market between 2021 and 2022.
Page 16 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
Figure 6: Estimated Share of the Single-Family Rental Market Held by Investors with over 1,000 Homes in Selected Areas, as
of 2022
Note: Underlying data are from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and property
records data. For purposes of this figure, single-family rental properties are one-unit properties. The
locations of the dots in the map correspond with the 20 Metropolitan Statistical Areas where
institutional investors in single-family rental housing owned the most properties, as of June 2022.
Market share percentages may be overstated for two reasons: (1) the numerator (i.e., the number of
single-family rental homes owned in each city by investors with more than 1,000 homes) includes
vacant properties, while data in the denominator (i.e., the total number of single-family rental homes
in each city) excludes vacant properties; and (2) data in the numerator are from 2022, while data in
Page 17 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
the denominator are from 2021, which likely overstates ownership by excluding any new single-family
rental housing supply that entered the market between 2021 and 2022.
An analysis of the corporate filings of three publicly traded institutional
investors showed most homes owned by those investors were in
moderate- and higher-income neighborhoods.
41
However, studies of
specific geographic areas indicate that investors have different home
acquisition strategies, which may influence the neighborhoods they invest
in. For example, one study of the Atlanta metropolitan area found
substantial differences in the racial and ethnic compositions of
neighborhoods with high rates of institutional investment.
42
Specifically,
the study found that properties of one institutional investor were located in
neighborhoods with the lowest percentage of non-Hispanic Black
residents and the highest percentage of Asian and Hispanic residents,
while properties of another institutional investor were located in
neighborhoods with the highest percentage of non-Hispanic Black
residents and lowest percentage of Asian and Hispanic residents. While
certain property characteristics made a home more likely to be purchased
by an institutional investor, the association of property, neighborhood, and
school district characteristics varied for each institutional investor
studied.
43
Studies we reviewed found institutional investors may have contributed to
an increase in home prices and rents after the financial crisis. But their
effects on homeownership and tenants are less clear because data are
limited and there is no agreed-upon definition of institutional investor. As
a result, few of the effects covered in the literature can be attributed
directly to institutional investors versus investors more generally. Also,
few of the studies assessed the effect of institutional investors after 2017.
In this section, we are using the term “institutional investor” to mean large,
single-family rental investors, which may be defined differently by study
authors. We use the term “investor” to refer more generally to broad
41
Colburn et al., “Capitalizing on Collapse.” The period studied varied by company but
generally was 2012 to 2017.
42
Charles, “The Financialization of Single-Family Rental Housing.” This study was of the
four largest single-family rental real estate investment trusts in the Atlanta metropolitan
area as of December 2018. A real estate investment trust generally owns income-
producing real estate or real estate-related assets and may be publicly traded on a stock
exchange.
43
Characteristics that made a home more likely to be owned by a single-family rental real
estate investment trust included smaller houses, houses that were large compared to their
lots, houses farther away from the central business district, and houses built after 1999.
Literature on Possible
Effects of Investment
in Single-Family
Rental Housing
Page 18 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
definitions of investors used in the literature (e.g., corporations or limited
liability companies, regardless of how many homes they own).
Studies we reviewed found institutional investors may have increased
home prices after the 2007–2009 financial crisis, especially in locations
with concentrated institutional investor activity.
44
Examples include the
following:
• One study found that zip codes that experienced larger increases in
institutional investor home purchases in 2012 experienced higher
home price appreciation over the next 2 years than zip codes with
lower to no increases in institutional investor home purchases.
45
This
study further found that non-institutional investors did not meaningfully
increase home prices. The authors posited that institutional investors
had a larger effect on prices than other investors because their
purchases removed a housing unit from the purchase market. In
contrast, many properties purchased by other investors were resold
within the next 2 years, resulting in a smaller permanent effect on
housing demand and prices. The study found institutional investment
in single-family rental housing was correlated with higher home
values. But the authors noted the possibility that institutional investors
might have been better at choosing neighborhoods with growing
housing demand, so home prices might have also risen absent their
purchases.
• Another study found that institutional investment in single-family rental
housing in 2012 increased the selling prices of surrounding homes,
helping to stabilize local housing markets following the financial
crisis.
46
To mitigate the effects of investor choice or selection bias on
price growth, the study evaluated price changes following REO-to-
Rental Initiative sales. As previously discussed, this program required
investors to bid on bulk-purchase prepackaged portfolios of foreclosed
properties. Investors were not allowed to bid on individual properties,
44
The studies that measured the effect of institutional investment on home prices
generally were limited to the period during and immediately after the financial crisis and
did not attempt to assess longer-term or more current effects.
45
Mills et al., “Large-Scale Buy-to-Rent.” Institutional investors are defined as the eight
largest investors in single-family rental housing at the time of the study. The authors use
Zillow home values to measure prices. Values are estimated using property characteristics
and repeat-sales techniques. Values do not always correspond to sales prices.
46
Ganduri et al., “Tracing the Source of Liquidity.”
What are the possible
effects of institutional
investment on home
prices?
Page 19 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
thereby mitigating their ability to purchase only the best value
properties in any given location.
The study found that sales prices within one-quarter mile of bulk-sale
properties increased by 1.4 percent more than homes located between
one-quarter and one-half mile away. The effect was greater for foreclosed
homes (4.1 percent increase), homes similar to the bulk-sale homes (2.5
percent), and homes in highly distressed neighborhoods (7 percent). The
authors noted that these price increases helped offset the discounts at
which properties were being sold prior to the bulk-sale events.
• A third study similarly found that home price recovery in the U.S.
following the financial crisis was largely explained by the emergence
of institutional investors.
47
Specifically, the authors estimated that the
increasing presence of institutional investors in the housing market
explained over half of the increase in real home price appreciation
rates from 2006 through 2014. They further found that the largest 20
institutional investors had a larger marginal effect on prices than other
institutional investors. However, the smaller investors purchased a
greater share of housing during the period, so they had a larger
overall effect on local home price growth.
48
• Finally, a fourth study found that investor purchases of single-family
rental housing from 2009 through 2017 initially increased price growth
for the median house, but that the effects diminished over time.
49
The
effect was largest for the lowest-priced housing. The study further
found that price effects in cities with concentrations of private equity
47
Lauren Lambie-Hanson, Wenli Li, Michael Slonksoky, Institutional Investors and the
U.S. Housing Recovery, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Working Paper, no.19-45
(Philadelphia, Pa.: Nov. 2019). This study defines institutional investors as companies with
names in the dataset used that include terms such as “corporation” or “limited liability
company.” These companies could own as few as one property. The study also identifies
and measures the effect on prices of the 20 largest institutional investors.
48
According to this study, from 2006 to 2014, the share of total purchases by the top 20
institutional buyers increased from near zero to 1.47 percent, while the share of corporate
purchases increased by 4.04 percent.
49
Carlos Garriga, Pedro Gete, and Athena Tsouderou, Investors and Housing
Affordability, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Working Paper, no. 2020-047A (St. Louis,
Mo.: Oct. 2020). In this study of metropolitan areas, the authors defined institutional
investors as legal entities that purchased multiple housing units under the name of a
company, such as a corporation or limited liability company. Although this study uses a
broad definition of institutional investor, it assessed variation in results between certain
large cities, where large private equity investor purchases were geographically
concentrated, and other cities with mainly small and local investors.
Page 20 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
investor purchases were similar to price effects in other cities,
suggesting that investor size was not a driver of price growth.
Some studies we reviewed found institutional investors may have
contributed to an increase in rents after the 2007–2009 financial crisis,
particularly in locations with concentrated institutional investor activity. For
example:
• One study found that the consolidation of institutional investor
companies may have provided these companies with sufficient market
power in certain areas to increase rents.
50
Specifically, the study
assessed the effect of institutional investment on rents using the
companies involved in the three largest mergers of single-family rental
housing investors from 2015 through 2017. It found that in the year
following the merger, neighborhoods where merged firms were more
active experienced a statistically significant increase in rent.
• Another study found that in locations with high supply elasticity (i.e.,
locations where it is easier to build housing), investors affected rents
more than home prices. Conversely, in areas with low supply elasticity
(i.e., locations where it is harder to build housing), investors affected
home prices more than rents.
51
Specifically, this study found that
institutional investor purchases had a statistically significant effect on
home prices and rents, but these effects disappeared in the third and
fourth year.
However, other studies found more limited effects of investors on rents.
• One study of the eight largest single-family rental investors from 2012
through 2014 found a larger share of home purchases by institutional
investors in a zip code was not highly correlated with subsequent
changes in rents.
52
The authors noted that this may be because these
investors were supplying rental units in locations where rental demand
50
Umit G. Gurun, Jiabin Wu, Steven Chong Xiao, Serena Wenjing Xiao, “Do Wall Street
Landlords Undermine Renters’ Welfare?” The Review of Financial Studies, vol. 36, no. 1
(2023): 70–121. This study evaluated companies involved in the three largest mergers of
institutional investors in single-family rental housing from 2015 through 2017. These
mergers created the two largest investors in single-family rental housing in the U.S. at the
time of the study, American Homes 4 Rent and Invitation Homes.
51
Garriga et al., “Investors and Housing Affordability.” The effects reported in this study
are short-term.
52
Mills et al., “Large-Scale Buy-to-Rent,” 426.
What are the possible
effects of institutional
investment on rents?
Page 21 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
was rising, so the net increase in supply was roughly met by an
increase in demand.
• Another study observed that an increase in investor purchases was
associated with an increase in county-level rents from 2011 through
2014, although the study noted that this association was not
statistically significant.
53
It is difficult to measure the effect of institutional investors in single-family
rental housing on homeownership rates. The homeownership rate fell
significantly from 2006 through 2012 and studies indicate institutional
investors bought thousands of foreclosed single-family homes during the
same period. Studies we reviewed found investor purchases, including in
some cases those by institutional investors, were associated with
decreases in homeownership rates.
54
The studies cited the concentration
of purchases in certain areas as a contributing factor. Some studies also
stated that institutional investment in single-family rental housing reduced
vacancy rates following the financial crisis because investors were
converting vacant (sometimes foreclosed) properties into rental housing.
55
The decision to own or rent a home may have more to do with other
market conditions and demographic factors than it does with the presence
of institutional investors in the market. A few studies we identified
evaluated some factors that could affect the homeownership rate.
53
Lambie-Hanson et al., Institutional Investors, 19. Investors were defined as companies.
Conversely, as noted above, this study found that the increasing presence of institutional
investors in the housing market explained over half of the increase in real home price
appreciation rates from 2006 through 2014. For additional discussion of house prices and
rental income for investors, see Andrea Eisfeldt and Andrew Demers, “Total Returns to
Single Family Rentals,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series,
Working Paper 21804 (Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, May
2021). Another study shows tighter credit markets caused rents to increase between 2010
and 2014. See Pedro Gete and Michael Reher, “Mortgage Supply and Housing Rents,”
The Review of Financial Studies, vol. 31, no. 12 (2018): 4884–4911.
54
See Lambie-Hanson et al., Institutional Investors; Brian Y. An., “The Influence of
Institutional Single-Family Rental Investors on Homeownership: Who Gets Targeted and
Pushed Out of the Local Market?” Journal of Planning Education and Research (2023): 2–
20; Fields and Vergerio, Corporate Landlords and Market Power; and Yonah Freemark,
Eleanor Noble, and Yipeng Su, Who Owns the Twin Cities? An Analysis of Racialized
Ownership Trends in Hennepin and Ramsey Counties (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute,
2021).
55
For example, see Mills et al., “Large-Scale Buy-to-Rent Investors”, and Lambie-Hanson
et al., Institutional Investors.
What are the possible
effects of institutional
investment on
homeownership or the
decision to rent?
Page 22 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
For example, one study suggested that homebuyers are not always
competing with institutional buyers for housing. The study found that
institutional investors purchase homes that require substantial repair or
renovation, the cost of which is out of reach for many homebuyers.
56
The
study noted that, in 2020, two institutional investors reported spending
$15,000–$39,000 to renovate each home they newly acquired. In
comparison, the study calculated a typical homeowner spends about
$6,300 during the first year after purchasing a home. It also found that
homeowners generally do not have access to financing for extensive
renovations.
Studies we reviewed had limited information on the financial and
demographic information on those who rent single-family homes. One
study found that from 2009 through 2016 renters of single-family homes
more closely resembled other renters than homeowners across several
characteristics with two exceptions: (1) a much higher share of renters of
single-family housing had at least one child (47 percent compared to 33
percent for renters in 2–4 unit buildings and 25 percent of renters in
multifamily buildings); and (2) a higher share of children living in poverty
live in single-family rental housing than they do in all other housing,
rented or owned (33 percent versus 11 percent).
57
The study also found
that neighborhoods with high growth in single-family rental homes were
home to higher proportions of younger households and households with
children and lower proportions of older households compared to
neighborhoods without high growth in single-family rentals.
58
56
Laurie Goodman and Edward Golding, Institutional Investors Have a Comparative
Advantage in Purchasing Homes That Need Repair (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute,
Oct. 20, 2021).
57
Deirdre Pfeiffer, Alex Schafran, and Jake Wegmann. “Vulnerability and Opportunity:
Making Sense of the Rise in Single-Family Rentals in US Neighbourhoods,” Housing
Studies, vol. 36, no. 7 (2021): 1026–1046. This study assessed differences in the racial
and ethnic composition of neighborhoods; median home values; household age,
education, and income; and household mobility. Additionally, the study focuses on single-
family rental homes, regardless of investor type.
58
Single-family neighborhoods are defined as those where 75 percent or more of homes
were single-family detached homes in 2009. Growth in single-family rentals is defined as
the change in the share of single-family detached homes that were rented from 2009 to
2016. High-growth areas experienced a change in the share of single-family rental homes
(relative to all single-family homes) that was greater than one standard deviation above
the average change of 4.4 percentage points across all areas (about 6.8 or more
percentage points). Research on neighborhoods focused on the 100 largest U.S.
metropolitan regions.
Page 23 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
In addition, the Amherst Group (an institutional investor) found in 2021
that 85 percent of the renters of its single-family housing did not have
credit scores or incomes that would qualify them for a mortgage.
59
The
company noted that the median income for a homeowner in 2019 was
estimated to be $86,000. This was considerably higher than the 2019
$60,000 median income of a renter living in a home built after 1980, the
house vintage most likely to be owned by an institutional investor.
60
The
Amherst Group estimated that a $60,000 income would qualify an
applicant for a home valued at less than $265,000, lower than the median
home price of $358,800.
The Amherst Group also found that compared to homeowners, renters of
single-family homes were younger and had larger families with more
children living at home, based on an analysis of Census data. These
renters were also more likely to have one income, less likely to be
married, and more likely to be single parents. The study concluded that
single-family rental housing allows those who cannot afford
homeownership to live in similar housing.
Additionally, some studies we reviewed found that more single-family
rental homes in a neighborhood may have improved integration and
educational opportunities for renters. One study found that by lowering
the cost of neighborhood entry, more single-family rentals, regardless of
investor type, increased racial integration in Florida neighborhoods where
Black households were historically underrepresented.
61
Specifically, the
study estimated that an increase of about 16 single-family rentals in a
neighborhood where Black households were underrepresented raised the
percentage of Black households from 2 to 3 percent.
62
The authors
59
Amherst Group, The Profile of Single-Family Renters and the Barriers to
Homeownership that Got Them Here (Nov. 2021). The Amherst Group owns and
manages more than 44,000 single-family homes in 19 states. According to Amherst
Group, more than 60 percent of their tenants have credit scores below 660.
60
The article attributes information on home prices to the National Association of Realtors
Research and Statistics: https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics.
61
Keith Ihlanfeldt and Cynthia Fan Yang, “Single-Family Rentals and Neighborhood Racial
Integration,” Journal of Housing Economics, vol. 53 (2021). The study did not find similar
effects for Hispanic households. This study did not review institutional investors, rather the
share of single-family rentals in neighborhoods (as measured by Census block groups) in
nine of the 10 largest urban counties in Florida from 2008 through 2013.
62
Study authors note the effect is larger for low- and middle-income neighborhoods. The
effect in high-income neighborhoods is not statistically significant.
Page 24 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
attributed this to the entry of Black households into neighborhoods rather
than the exit of White or Hispanic households.
Another study found that neighborhoods with high growth in single-family
rental homes were more racially and ethnically diverse than
neighborhoods with lower growth in single-family rental homes.
63
Specifically, the study found that about half of households in these high-
growth neighborhoods identified as White compared to about 70 percent
in other neighborhoods. However, these high-growth neighborhoods had
less income diversity and higher levels of economic disadvantage
compared to other neighborhoods.
64
A third study examined whether an increase in single-family rentals in the
100 largest metropolitan areas between 2010 and 2015 provided renters
with access to better-performing schools.
65
The study found that the
increase in single-family rentals did not provide households in poverty
with access to neighborhoods with higher educational opportunities.
66
However, it also found that the increase in rentals increased access to
neighborhoods with better schools for near-poverty households.
Robust research is limited on institutional investors’ lease terms, including
maintenance responsibilities and ancillary fees, and on eviction practices.
Research in this area tends also to focus on one or a few companies or a
specific geographic area. As a result, it is unclear whether identified
practices are common across all institutional investors and the extent to
which smaller investors may also engage in these practices.
63
Pfeiffer et al., “Vulnerability and Opportunity.” This study examined household and
neighborhoods characteristics in the 100 largest metropolitan areas from 2009 through
2016. Measures of race and ethnicity are for the heads of households. As previously
discussed, high-growth areas experienced a change in the share of single-family rental
homes (relative to all single-family homes) that was greater than one standard deviation
above the average change of 4.4 percentage points across all areas (about 6.8 or more
percentage points).
64
According to the study, these results were statistically significant.
65
Sahar Khaleel and Bernadette Hanlon, “The Rise of Single-Family Rentals and the
Relationship to Opportunity Neighbourhoods for Low-Income Families with Children,”
Urban Studies, vol. 60, no. 13 (2023): 2706–2724. This study did not distinguish between
institutional and other types of investors.
66
This study found that in two circumstances, single-family rentals did provide access to
higher educational opportunity neighborhoods to near-poverty families: (1) when there
were very large increases in single-family rentals and (2) when there were few near-
poverty families with children.
What are the possible
effects of institutional
investment on tenants?
Page 25 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
• A few studies we reviewed cited examples of institutional investors’
leases requiring tenants to take on maintenance repairs themselves.
67
Other studies reviewed corporate filings and other public documents
and gave examples of institutional investor companies charging fees
the authors considered excessive.
68
• Studies on institutional investors’ eviction practices are also limited, in
large part due to a lack of robust data on evictions in general.
69
Some
studies suggest that large property owners (including institutional
investors) are more likely to file evictions than other property
owners.
70
However, not all households that receive notice of eviction
are evicted. Further, available eviction data do not account for
informal evictions that occur outside the legal process, such as when
a landlord compels a tenant to leave by changing the locks.
71
We provided a draft of this report to the Department of Housing and
Urban Development and the Federal Housing Finance Agency for review
and comment. The Department of Housing and Urban Development did
not have any comments on the report. The Federal Housing Finance
Agency provided technical comments, which we incorporated, as
appropriate.
We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional
committees, the Acting Secretary of Housing and Urban Development,
the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and other interested
67
For example, see Abood, Securitizing Suburbia and Desiree Fields, The Rise of the
Corporate Landlord: The Institutionalization of the Single-Family Rental Market and
Potential Impacts on Renters (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Homes For All Campaign of Right To The
City Alliance, 2014).
68
For example, Fields and Vergerio, “Corporate Landlords and Market Power,” cites fees
for tenant utility reimbursements, late payment, moving out, pets, pest control services,
landscaping services, and smart home appliances, among other miscellaneous fees. For
an additional discussion of fees as a revenue stream, see Abood, “Wall Street Landlords.”
69
See GAO, Evictions: National Data Are Limited and Challenging to Collect,
GAO-24-106637 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 28, 2024).
70
For example, see Elora Lee Raymond, Richard Duckworth, Benjamin Miller, Michael
Lucas, and Shiraj Pokharel, “From Foreclosure to Eviction: Housing Insecurity in
Corporate-Owned Single-Family Rentals,” Cityscape, vol. 20, no. 3 (2018); Seymour,
“Corporate Landlords and Prepandemic Evictions in Las Vegas”; and Lambie-Hanson et
al., Institutional Investors.
71
GAO-24-106637.
Agency Comments
Page 26 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
parties. In addition, the report is available at no charge on the GAO
website at https://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact
me at (202) 512-8678 or [email protected]. Contact points for our
Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on
the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this
report are listed in appendix II.
Jill Naamane
Director, Financial Markets and Community Investment
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and
Methodology
Page 27 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
This report provides information on (1) institutional investors in single-
family rental housing and (2) reported effects of this investment on
housing markets and residents.
To address both objectives, we conducted a review of relevant research
published from 2005 through 2023 that examined institutional investment
in single-family rental housing.
1
We chose 2005 as the starting point
because this preceded the 2007–2009 financial crisis. We conducted
multiple librarian-assisted searches of various databases, including
Scopus, Dialog, and EBSCOhost. We performed the searches using
keywords and manual review to limit the scope to (1) the single-family
rental housing market and (2) investors, owners, and operators in this
market. We used variations of terms including but not limited to
“institutional,” “corporate,” “private equity,” “real estate owned,” “build to
rent,” “buy to rent,” “real estate investment trusts,” “pension funds,”
“limited liability companies,” and “mom and pop.”
Our literature search identified a total of 202 studies, including scholarly
articles and research reports from governmental and nongovernmental
organizations. To assess the relevance of these studies, we reviewed
their abstracts to determine whether they discussed at least one of four
topics: (1) defining institutional investors, (2) comparing institutional
investors to other investors, (3) identifying factors that influence
investment, or (4) identifying the effects of institutional investment. Of the
202 studies identified in our literature search, we determined 74 were
relevant to our objectives, which we then reviewed and summarized. We
then reviewed these studies to evaluate and ensure the quality and rigor
of the methodology. All the studies we reviewed are included in the
bibliography at the end of this report.
To identify the largest institutional investors in single-family rental
housing, the number of properties owned by institutional investors as of
the end of 2022, and their investment strategies, we
1. collected information from seven studies included in our literature
review that identified the largest institutional investors from 2014
through 2021;
1
We focused the scope of our review to single-family rental homes. This scope excluded
short-term rental homes, international investors, flippers (entities that purchase, fix up, and
sell properties over a short period of time), and iBuyers (companies that use algorithms
and technology to buy and resell homes quickly).
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and
Methodology
Literature Review
Identification of
Institutional Investors
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and
Methodology
Page 28 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
2. collected information on the largest investors through interviews with
selected industry groups (described in more detail below); and
3. verified and updated the information gathered from the literature and
interviews with data and information from the companies’ websites
and corporate filings retrieved from their websites.
The studies we reviewed differed in their methods for defining institutional
investors and for obtaining and analyzing data. However, corroboration of
the largest firms across multiple sources provided reasonable assurance
that the largest institutional investors in single-family rental housing were
captured through this analysis.
To inform both objectives, we interviewed federal officials, industry
participants, and other stakeholders about our research objectives. We
interviewed officials from the Department of Housing and Urban
Development, Federal Housing Finance Agency, Fannie Mae, and
Freddie Mac because of their roles in the housing market. We also
interviewed representatives from a consumer advocacy organization
(Americans for Financial Reform), industry professionals (the Amherst
Group and National Rental Home Council), and research organizations
(Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, Urban Institute,
and a researcher from the University of California, Berkeley). We selected
these individuals or entities because they were identified in our literature
review or interviews with agency officials as having knowledge of the
single-family rental industry.
Finally, we analyzed market data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St.
Louis to provide background information on homeownership and
rentership rates, home prices and rents, borrower credit scores, and
mortgage interest rates. We found these data to be reliable for describing
these trends.
We conducted this performance audit from February 2023 to May 2024 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives.
Interviews
Data on Market
Trends
Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff
Acknowledgements
Page 29 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
In addition to the contact named above, Cory Marzullo (Assistant
Director), Chris Ross (Analyst in Charge), Conrad Belknap, Anna Blasco,
Steve Brown, Lauren Capitini, Chelsea Carter, Yiwen (Eva) Cheng,
Garrett Hillyer, Marc Molino, Anne Rhodes-Kline, and Farrah Stone made
key contributions to this report.
Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff
Acknowledgements
GAO Contact
Staff
Acknowledgments
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Page 30 GAO-24-106643 Rental Housing
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