PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
ResearchReport
Lar gecorporatebuy ersofr esidential
rentalhousingduringtheCOVID19
pandemicinthr eesoutheastern
metr opolitan ar eas
EloraRaymond,PhD,YilunZha,EthanKnight‐ScottandLeahCabrera
SchoolofCityandRegionalPlanning,GeorgiaInstituteofTechnology
January13,2022
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
2
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Housing Crisis Research Collaborative, which aims to
address the longstanding inequities in access to safe, stable, and affordable rental housing that
have been laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides policymakers at all levels of
government with the data and analysis they need to design, implement, and evaluate more
equitable and effective rental housing and community development responses to pandemic and
the ongoing rental housing affordability crisis. For more visit: www.housingcrisisresearch.org.
The Housing Crisis Research Collaborative is supported by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and the
Wells Fargo Foundation, and managed by the Urban Institute. We are grateful to them for
allowing the Collaborative to advance its goals. Unless otherwise specifically stated, the views
and opinions expressed in the report are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect
the views and opinions of the funders or their affiliates.
Data for this research was provided by Zillow through the Zillow Transaction and Assessment
Dataset (ZTRAX). More information on accessing the data can be found at
http://www.zillow.com/ztrax. The results and opinions are those of the author(s) and do not
reflect the position of Zillow Group.
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 4
Background ..................................................................................................................................... 5
Data ................................................................................................................................................. 7
Methods........................................................................................................................................... 9
Results ............................................................................................................................................. 9
Large Corporate Buyers increased purchases in 2021 after a brief pause in 2020 ..................... 9
Table 1 All Purchases by Housing Type................................................................................. 9
Figure 1 Single Family Rental Sales by Corporation Type and Quarter .............................. 10
Figure 2 Large Corporate Purchases of Single Family Rentals, by County ......................... 10
Figure 3 Single Family Rentals, Median Sales Price by County .......................................... 11
Types of Large Corporate Investors in Single Family Homes ................................................. 11
Table 2 Large Corporate Buyers of Single Family Homes ................................................... 12
Large Corporate Buyers Increased Purchases in Neighborhoods Impacted by COVID19, with
High Housing Instability ........................................................................................................... 14
Table 3 Demographic Characteristics of Single Family Rental Neighborhoods, by Buyer
Type ...................................................................................................................................... 14
Table 4 Demographic Characteristics of Large Corporate Buyer Purchases, by Firm type . 14
Table 5 Large Corporate Buyers Increased Purchases in Places Hit Hard by COVID19 .... 15
Table 6 Large Corporate Investors and Disadvantaged Communities ................................. 16
Trading Platforms and SFR Purchases Concentrated in Atlanta .............................................. 16
Figure 4 Spatial Analysis of Single Family Rental Buyers .................................................. 17
Opportunity Zones .................................................................................................................... 17
Discussion ..................................................................................................................................... 18
References ..................................................................................................................................... 20
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
4
Introduction
The COVID19 pandemic and associated economic recession has transformed the housing terrain
in southeastern cities, creating new urgency around providing safe, stable, affordable housing,
while straining existing housing systems. Widespread unemployment during the past two years
has resulted in widespread non-payment by renters and declining rent rolls for rental operators.
While mortgage forbearance policy has been effective in preventing foreclosures, rising
mortgage delinquency suggests there may be at some point an increase in distressed homeowners
looking to sell. Anecdotal evidence suggests investors view the COVID19 economic crisis as an
opportunity to accelerate investments in purchases of residential housing stock, including single-
family houses, apartment buildings, long-stay motels and mobile home parks.
In this research brief, we describe purchases of multifamily and single family rentals in the year
before and after the emergence of the COVID19 pandemic. We examine these patterns in study
areas in three southeastern cities: Atlanta, Miami, and Tampa. We rely on ZTRAX, Zillow’s
database linking deeded transactions with tax assessors’ data, to understand purchasing patterns
rental residential real estate during the pandemic. After identifying large corporate landlords in
our dataset, we examine transaction volumes and median prices before and after the pandemic.
Unlike other types of landlords, who focus on rental revenues as a profit strategy, private equity
firms and institutional investors have been found to be particularly interested in the capital gains
opportunities that residential real estate can provide (Demers & Eisfeldt, 2018). The focus on
capital gains is exemplified by purchases of distressed properties in low income, historically non-
white neighborhoods that have suffered from disinvestment, but where gentrification or real
estate cycle dynamics predict medium term price increases (August & Walks, 2018; Colburn et
al., 2021).
The Opportunity Zone program, put in place with the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs act, is an uncapped,
loosely targeted, place-based policy which provides capital gains tax shelters for investors that
invest in low-income communities. It is a large program: an estimated 31 million Americans live
in an opportunity zone. While initially billed as a jobs program, nearly all of these funds have
flowed into real estate investment, not businesses (Theodos et al., 2020). Given the capital-gains
oriented strategies of large corporate investors, and the structure of the OZ program incentives,
we expect that opportunity zones will be particularly attractive to institutional investors and
private equity firms. Should the pandemic create opportunities to purchase homes coming out of
mortgage forbearance, or other distressed rental properties, we expect these firms would
demonstrate a preference for properties located in opportunity zones. For these reasons, we
perform a separate analysis of large corporations’ purchases in opportunity zones during the
pandemic.
Overall, we find that after a brief pause in Q2 of 2020, large corporate investors operating in
Miami, Tampa and Atlanta increased their purchases during the pandemic, and by summer of
2021, were purchasing homes nearly twice as quickly than in 2019. We examine both pricing
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
5
and volume of sales, and see no evidence that investment in garden style or multifamily
increased, or that purchases were focused in opportunity zones in our study areas. Instead, all of
the increases came from the single family housing stock. Large corporate investor purchases
were divided evenly between firms that operate as trading platforms and firms that operate single
family rental or rent-to-own. Single family rental and rent-to-own firms focused almost
exclusively in Atlanta, whereas trading platforms bought large volumes of homes in each study
area we observed.
We confirm previous research which has found that large corporate single family rental and rent-
to-own investors purchase in highly segregated, predominantly Black and non-White Hispanic
areas, while avoiding high poverty neighborhoods and areas with low levels of owner-occupied
housing stock. After the pandemic began, these large corporate investors increased purchases in
places with high housing instability risk, and those hit hard by COVID19. Large corporate
trading platforms demonstrated a different pattern of buying. These firms purchased homes in
areas with fewer people of color overall, and after the pandemic began, reduced purchases in
neighborhoods that were impacted by the COVID19 pandemic, or had high housing instability.
Based on the data analyzed for this brief, the pandemic housing crisis has resulted in incremental
growth in purchases by large corporate landlords and trading platforms. Their presence in
regional submarkets is now substantial. During our timeframe, large corporate buyers comprised
17% of all purchases of single family rentals, with purchases ramping up through 2021, such that
these firms comprised 25% of all home purchases by Q2 of 2021. Should their market share
grow, and concerns continue with regard to eviction, maintenance, and rate hikes, finding ways
to regulate these firms will remain an important policy concern.
Background
The rise of large corporate landlords is an important housing policy concern. Institutional Single-
Family Rentals (ISFR) is a relatively new housing and financial phenomenon that traces its roots
to the subprime and foreclosure crises of the 2000s. During this period, large corporate investors
began purchasing foreclosed and bank-owned single-family homes with the intention of
managing as single family rentals (Mills, Molloy, and Zarutskie 2019). Prior to the foreclosure
crisis, large-scale ISFR’s were thought to be infeasible because of the high maintenance costs for
geographically scattered properties (Colburn, Walter, and Pfeiffer 2021); and because investment
conduits such as single family rental securitizations (SFRS) had not been created, and tested.
However, government support for the creation of single family rental securitization structures,
and technological advances created an environment where ISFRs could thrive.
All major ISFR’s today got their start in the SFR market around the 2011-2015 time period,
partially in response to calls from then Fed Chair Ben Bernanke for REO-to-Rental, the bulk
sales programs initiated by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and FHFA support for Single Family
Rental Securitizations (SFRS) as an emerging asset class during these years (Raymond et al.,
2018). Before that period, SFR’s were dominated by owners with property portfolios of around
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
6
10 units or fewer, but now major ISFRs own properties numbering in the tens of
thousands (Colburn, Walter, and Pfeiffer 2021). SFRS now consistently receive AAA ratings
from credit rating agencies, and are established as a profitable and growing asset class. In
addition to the creation of financial infrastructure, the emergence of ISFRs was enabled by the
development of digital property management technology (Fields, 2019). Digital technologies for
tenant screening, home assessments, maintenance, and rental collection substantially reduce the
cost and complexity of managing scattered properties (Mills, Molloy, and Zarutskie 2019).
Large corporate landlords are associated with high rates of housing instability due to frequent
rental price increases and aggressive eviction practices (Mari, 2020). These firms have higher
eviction rates than small landlords (Gomory, 2021; Raymond et al., 2018). Investor purchases of
multifamily have been found to cause spikes in evictions-led displacement, and to accelerate
displacement of Black residents at the neighborhood level (Raymond et al., 2021).
Traditionally, residential housing has been an extremely deconcentrated industry; however, since
the foreclosure crisis, the market crisis and shifts in institutional support for private equity firms
have generated an increased stance for private equity in the single family rental market.
Individuals went from owning 92% of SFR to 74% from 1991 to 2015; (Pfeiffer et al., 2020).
From 2000 – 2014, in the 20 largest metropolitan areas, institutional investors went from 5% to
14% of all purchases and from 1% to 24% of all distressed purchases (Lambie-Hanson et al.,
2019). Not only are large corporate investors growing in market share in the single family rental
space, they have been found to compete with, and crowd out homeownership at the local level
(Lambie-Hanson et al., 2019).
As this asset class was built in the footprint of subprime lending and the foreclosure crisis,
ISFR’s tend to locate in the Sunbelt region of the U.S., including cities such as Atlanta, Miami,
Tampa, Charlotte, Phoenix, and Los Angeles (Mills, Molloy, and Zarutskie 2019). These are
cities with newer housing stock which experienced high rates of foreclosures during the
foreclosure crisis, a prolonged price collapse, but had projected population and income growth
over the long term. While the overall market share of institutional investors is low nationwide,
they have high market share in particular submarkets of some metropolitan areas (Colburn et al.,
2021; Lambie-Hanson et al., 2018). Within cities, SFR purchases are concentrated in areas with
higher racial and ethnic diversity, low housing choice voucher rates, and rising economic
disadvantage (Pfeiffer et al., 2020).
Not all large corporate buyers of single family rentals are the same. Instead, there are a wide
array of investor types, and the profit strategies for these firms vary widely. Some, like
OpenDoor and Zillow, can be thought of as trading platforms, which seek to realize a profit by
flipping or quickly reselling properties, as well as transforming the way in which homeowners
purchase homes from the typical realtor model. Trading platforms created an online system that
allows for remote investments, embedding local real estate markets in wider geographic markets
(Fields, 2019; Fields & Rogers, 2021). These firms generate profits through a significantly
shorter buying process, eliminating realtor fees, appraisal, and the mortgage qualification
process. These platforms use automated valuation to make cash offers, then sell, market, and
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
7
close the deal on the home and generate a small profit by doing this. Some estimates are that the
platform earns a 5% profit on each transaction (Buchak et al., n.d.).
Other firms invest in single family homes in order to operate them as rentals. Profits can emerge
from price appreciation, rental revenue, or both. (Demers & Eisfeldt, 2018) analyze the single
family rental sector in 2015. They value the industry at 2.3 trillion nationwide, and analyze
returns nationwide from 1986 to 2014. They find overall returns are 8.5% per annum, returns are
split between price appreciation and rental yields 50/50. High price tier cities contributed more to
capital gains; low price tier cities contributed to net rental yields, and lower price tier
neighborhoods had higher total returns. Unlike other distressed property investors which have
historically held properties for five-to-ten years before selling, ISFR’s hold properties beyond ten
years when possible, focusing on generating revenue by obtaining prime properties, low
vacancies, and steady rent payments (Colburn, Walter, and Pfeiffer 2021).
The geography of large corporate investment in residential housing is shaped not only by
metropolitan level factors, but potentially by place-based tax incentives like the Opportunity
Zone (OZ) program. This program was established by the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act. Like other
place-based tax benefit policies, this program directs investment into areas with concentrated
poverty by offering capital gains exclusions to investors (Alm et al., 2021; Sage, 2019). Unlike
the New Markets Tax Credit and Low Income Housing Tax Credit programs, the size of the
program is not capped. There is no public accounting of the investments put in place, but some
estimate the program will attract $100 Billion in investment, and estimate costs at $1.6 Billion in
tax expenditures between 2018 and 2028 (Jacoby, 2019).
The OZ program has been criticized for weak targeting, providing the strong incentives to the
most profitable programs, while disadvantaging mission-drive developments that would be the
most beneficial to low-income communities where investment is targeted (Theodos et al., 2020).
Although the program was billed as a jobs creator, a Novogradec study of 621 QOZs finds that
just 4% of these funds support business, and the vast majority are funding real estate investments
(Jacoby, 2019). Some research has found that OZ designation resulted in a 20 to 22% increase in
home prices, and questions have arisen about whether this program exacerbate gentrification and
displacement (Looney, 2018; Sage, 2019; Weiss, 2020).
In this research, we propose to describe a pattern of purchases of residential housing during the
COVID19 pandemic in select counties drawn from three Sunbelt cities in GA and FL: Atlanta,
Tampa and Miami. We describe purchases by large, corporate investors before and during the
pandemic and examine whether the presence of opportunity zone tax benefits had any effect on
investment patterns. While we focus on the single family housing stock, we also examine any
effects on patterns of purchases in other types of housing, including small and large multifamily
homes.
Data
We use Zillow’s ZTRAX parcel-level data on all residential property sales from Q1 2019
through Q2 2021, which comprises a balanced panel before and after the pandemic began in Q2
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
8
of 2020. This dataset joins parcel-level property information from tax assessors’ databases,
property owner information, and sales and mortgage information from deeds datasets. We
exclude duplicate records, records with a transaction price of less than $35,000, a square footage
of less than 350, and records where building square footage or sales data are missing. The result
is 384,197 residential real estate transactions between January 2019 and July 2021.
We rely on Zillow’s proprietary classification of residential housing into four types: garden style
(2-4 units), multifamily (5+ units), single-family occupied and single family rental. Because we
see single family homes moving between rental and owner-occupied at the time of the
transaction, we also analyze buyer names to make the determination of whether single family
homes are rental properties or owner-occupied. All individual buyers of single family homes
with no corporate buyer listed are classified as single family owner occupied. Purchases of single
family homes which have both an individual and a corporate buyer, and in which the corporate
name can be categorized as a family trust are also classified as owner-occupied. This
classification potentially underestimates the number of single family rentals, as some family
trusts may be operated as rental properties. All other single family properties with corporate
buyers are classified as single family rentals.
Identifying the large corporate owners is challenging due to the complex structure of shell
companies that are the designated owners of residential property. While some methods have been
refined for using existing tax assessor records to determine which corporate umbrella firm is the
ultimate owner of the entity that owns a given parcel, in the absence of rental property registries
outlining the chain of ownership, it is impossible to comprehensively complete this task. For that
reason, estimates of corporate purchases and ownership in this brief define the lower bound.
To identify large corporate buyers and institutional investors, we examine all records in which
the buyer purchases were worth at least $5 million, or if the buyer was found in 15 or more
transactions. Once the full list of buyers was identified, two research assistants researched
corporate hierarchy in order to group purchases by corporate owner. These purchases were
grouped using the SEC’s Edgar database, the Georgia Secretary of State’s Registry of
Corporations, corporate profile databases such as Bloomberg and CNBC, and privately operated
databases including OpenCorporates.com, BisProfiles.com, FloridaReg.com, and
GeorgiaCompanyRegistry.com. After coding and grouping was complete, we researched large
corporate and institutional investors with more than 100 transactions during the study period.
To analyze the socioeconomic context of corporate landlord investments, we draw on ACS 2015-
2019 data, as well as the Urban Institute’s Housing Instability Risk, COVID19 Impact, and
Equity Indices (Batko et al., 2021). These indices are drawn from ACS 2015-2019 data. They
represent composite indices of risk of housing instability, COVID19 economic and health
impact, and an Equity index capturing socioeconomic status. For our opportunity zone analysis,
we draw on 2017 ACS data to generate a list of Qualified Tracts for the opportunity zone
program and select matched tracts.
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
9
Methods
To analyze the patterns of sales, we provide descriptive statistics about the median price, and
number of transactions by county and quarter. We also compare changes in median price per
square foot before and after the pandemic, and in and outside of opportunity zones. To provide a
comparison set for opportunity zone tracts, we examined tracts from the set of census tracts
which qualified but were not designated within the opportunity zone program.
Using this comparison, we describe the difference in average median sales price per sq. ft. by
housing type between matched tracts before and after the pandemic. Finally, we perform a spatial
analysis of buyers within these counties.
Results
LargeCorporateBuyersincreasedpurchasesin2021afterabriefpausein2020
Table 1 displays the number of residential sales between January of 2019 and July of 2021. Total
purchases of garden style apartments (2-4 units) rose by 2.1%, despite a collapse in sales during
the first three months of the pandemic. Multifamily apartments (5+ units) fell slightly. Large
corporate buyers are those with more than 100 transactions during this timeframe. Large
corporate buyers purchased very few of these multifamily or garden style apartment, particularly
after the start of the pandemic.
Over the entire timeframe, around 15 percent of the single family transactions were rentals; the
remainder were owner-occupied. Large corporate buyers had a much stronger presence in the
single family rental space than in multifamily, and accounted for about 9,461, or 17% of SFR
purchases. Single family rental transactions fell by -2,027, or around -.7%. This decline was
more than accounted for by the decline in single family rental transactions by large corporate
buyers, which fell by -401 or -8.1%.
Table1AllPurchasesbyHousingType
AllPurchases LargeCorporateBuyers
Q12019‐
Q12020
Q22020‐
Q22021
Percent
Change
Q12019‐
Q12020
Q22020‐
Q22021
Percent
Change
GardenStyleApartments 1,606 1,648 2.6% 13 5‐61.5%
MultifamilyApartments 1,891 1,856‐1.9% 13 5‐61.5%
SingleFamilyOwner
Occupied
158,974 162,953 2.5% n/a n/a n/a
SingleFamilyRentals 23,699 22,073‐6.9% 4,931 4,530‐8.1%
The pandemic decline in single family rental sales is due to depressed purchases in the first 6
months of the pandemic, as shown in Figure 1. By late 2020 and through 2021, purchases of
single family rentals had recovered and surpassed 2019 levels. For large corporate buyers, the
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
10
pace of sales not only recovered, but by Q2 2021, had doubled quarterly transaction volumes of
2019.
Figure1SingleFamilyRentalSalesbyCorporationTypeandQuarter
The strong increase in sales of single family rentals in 2021 were driven by increased sales in
DeKalb and Gwinnett counties in the Atlanta region. Figure 2 displays large corporate purchases,
broken down by county. While purchases in Miami and Tampa counties recovered gradually, in
2021, the number of single family rental purchases in the Atlanta counties of Gwinnett and
DeKalb doubled 2019 levels.
Figure2LargeCorporatePurchasesofSingleFamilyRentals,byCounty
The swift increases in sales in 2021 were matched by strong price growth. Figure 3 depicts
median sales growth by county from the beginning of 2019 through summer of 2021. Sales
prices for single family rentals increased throughout 2020 in all counties in our sample. Price
0
1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
5,000
6,000
2019
Q1
2019
Q2
2019
Q3
2019
Q4
2020
Q1
2020
Q2
2020
Q3
2020
Q4
2021
Q1
2021
Q2
OtherCorporate LargeCorporate
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
2019
Q1
2019
Q2
2019
Q3
2019
Q4
2020
Q1
2020
Q2
2020
Q3
2020
Q4
2021
Q1
2021
Q2
Broward DeKalb Gwinnett
Hillsborough PalmBeach Pinellas
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
11
increases between January, 2019 and June, 2021 ranged from 32% in Broward county, FL to
78% in DeKalb county, GA.
Figure3SingleFamilyRentals,MedianSalesPricebyCounty
TypesofLargeCorporateInvestorsinSingleFamilyHomes
What sorts of firms comprise these single family rental investors? We identify three types in our
sample: trading platforms like OpenDoor and Zillow; Rent-to-Own firms like DIVVY Homes;
and Corporate Landlords like Pretium Partners’ Progress Residential, American Homes 4 Rent,
and Blackstone’s Invitation Homes. Table 2 describes the purchases of each firm with more than
100 purchases between 2019 and 2021. The categorizations of these firms is not clear-cut; some
firms house a variety of operations in the single family rental market, and can operate as trading
platforms, single family rental operators, home flippers in different contexts. We briefly profile
each firm next.
$‐
$50,000
$100,000
$150,000
$200,000
$250,000
$300,000
$350,000
2019
Q1
2019
Q2
2019
Q3
2019
Q4
2020
Q1
2020
Q2
2020
Q3
2020
Q4
2021
Q1
2021
Q2
Broward DeKalb Gwinnett
Hillsborough PalmBeach Pinellas
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
12
Table2
LargeCorporateBuyersofSingleFamilyHomes
FirmType CorporateOwner Pre Post Total GeographicFocus
Trading
Platform
Opendoor 1,037 727 1,764 Atlanta,Tampa
Zillow 439 639 1,078 All
Offerpad/SupernovaPartnersAcquisition 459 311 770 Atlanta,Tampa
HomeVestors:Hi‐LandProperties 106 98 204 Atlanta,Tampa
RenttoOwn DivvyHomes 68 143 211 Atlanta
Institutional
SFR
PretiumPartners 278 301 579 Atlanta
SylvanRoad 152 121 273 Atlanta
AmericanHomes4Rent 32 74 106 Atlanta
BNYMellon/AmherstCapital 777 658 1,435 Atlanta,Tampa
Blackstone 452 318 770 Atlanta,Tampa
CerberusCapitalManagement 194 561 755 Atlanta,All
StarwoodCapitalGroup 329 196 525 Atlanta
There are four major trading platform buyers operating in our study area: Opendoor,
Zillow Offers, Offerpad, and HomeVestors. Of the four, Zillow is the largest. Zillow started as a
real estate listing website in 2006. In 2018 they transitioned to a home buying company,
Zillow Offers (Fields & Rogers, 2021). Zillow Offers recently announced that they expect to
pause purchases due to high price volatility and difficulties in upgrading homes (McArdle,
2021).
Other trading platforms have continued to operate, including Opendoor and Offerpad, two
platforms to sell, buy, or trade owner-occupied homes and investment properties (Chandler,
n.d.). HomeVestors of America has a franchise model, with over 1,000 franchise offices across
46 states, and Washington D.C. Their franchises engage in a variety of activities, including
automating the buying and selling process, including flipping homes, and connecting investors
with rental properties (HomeVestor of America, 2019).
We identify seven major ISFR’s that purchased at least 100 parcels of single-family homes in the
last year in our sample areas in Atlanta, Miami, and Tampa. These firms are: Pretium Partners,
Sylvan Road, American Homes 4 Rent, BNY Mellon / Amherst Capital, Blackstone, Cerberus
Capital Management, and Starwood Capital Group.
Pretium Partners is an “alternative investment management firm” that focuses on real estate,
residential credit, and corporate credit. The private company was founded in 2012, and in
January 2021 Pretium completed a takeover of Front Yard Residential, becoming the second
largest owner and operator of SFR properties in the U.S (Pretium, 2021). The same year,
Pretium agreed to buy 2,000 of Zillow’s properties during the online platform’s sell-
off (TheRealDeal, 2021b) . Pretium has garnered a reputation for its uninhibited use
of the eviction process: Pretium created controversy in 2021 for evicting tenants during the
COVID-19 pandemic despite the federal eviction moratorium (TheRealDeal,
2021). Additionally, the company is being accused of racial discrimination
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
13
in disproportionately filing for eviction in majority-Black Georgia counties compared to
majority-white Florida counties (Warnica, 2021).
Atlanta-based Sylvan Road is a self-described “asset management firm focused on single family
residential investments” (Sylvan, n.d.). Little information is available on the company, which
generates fewer news stories as other ISFR firms. Sylvan Road appears to have a buy-and-hold
single family rental model, but has been documented selling its portfolios as well (Mann, 2021;
Suggs, 2021).
American Homes 4 Rent is a publicly traded REIT concentrating in the single-family housing
market. The company started in 2012, merging with American Residential Properties in
2016. Similar to Pretium, AMH4R is in the process of obtaining portions of Zillow’s housing
stock, and like other ISFR’s, AMH4R gains profit by generating steady revenue from renters
(Parker, 2021a). AMH4R is notable for its “build-to-rent" model, where the company is
increasingly involved in constructing homes to feed housing demand (Parker, 2021b). AMH4R
built over 1,000 of these homes in 2020, and is forecasting to construct at least 2,000 by the end
of 2021.
Amherst Capital Management (ACM) is the arm of Amherst Holdings that manages the
company’s involvement in the single-family rental market. Founded in 2014, ACM started out as
being majority-owned by BNY Mellon, but BNY Mellon later took a smaller position in the
ownership of the company (BNY Mellon, 2018; CNBC, 2018). It’s unclear how much control
BNY Mellon retains. A subsidiary of ACM supposedly filed for over 100 evictions last year,
akin to strategies used by other ISFR’s (Sirota et al., 2021).
Blackstone was founded in 1985 by two former employees of Lehman Brothers; the company is
one of the earliest and best known ISFR’s. Recently, Blackstone’s position in the ISFR
business has fluctuated. In 2019, Blackstone sold its shares in Invitation Homes, before going on
to purchase a stake in Tricon Residential in 2020 (Grant, 2021). In 2021, Blackstone reached a
deal to acquire Home Partners of America . Top officials in Blackstone have spoken candidly
about how the company’s high rentals costs power revenues – similar to most ISFR’s
(Corbishley, 2021). Recently, Blackstone acquired a portion of Zillow’s housing stock through
Tricon Residential during the online platform company’s selloff (Dezember, 2019) . Blackstone
has also explored attempts to move into the world of online platforms/iBuying through
a company known as RealSure (Clark, 2021).
Cerberus Capital Management is a private equity company that is heavily involved in the single-
family homes market through its subsidiary company FirstKey Homes, which manages at least
24,000 single-family homes (Burke, 2021). Cerberus finances itself with money from private
sponsors, such as when it was rewarded a $616 million loan from Morgan Stanley in November
2021 (Burke, 2021). Cerberus has been able to use this private equity to acquire a large housing
stock, including purchasing some of Zillow’s portfolio (Clark et al., 2021). Like other ISFR’s,
Cerberus has a heavy-hand with using the eviction process: the company was shown to file for
eviction at rates much higher than average in multiple zip codes around Memphis, TN (Frankel
& Keating, 2018) .
Starwood Capital Group is a private investment firm operating in the housing market primarily
through subsidiary companies such as Starwood Distressed Opportunity Fund SOF XII
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
14
(Starwood Capital Group, 2021). Starwood had largely exited the single-family housing market
years prior, but is now reentering the market and has reportedly already made significant
purchases (Clark, 2019). During the pandemic, Starwood was one among many ISFR’s that filed
for evictions during a federal moratorium (Merle, 2020).
LargeCorporateBuyersIncreasedPurchasesinNeighborhoodsImpactedby
COVID19,withHighHousingInstability
In the single family rental sector, large corporate buyers are associated with distressed sales, and
have historically have invested in areas with higher poverty rates, and in communities of people
of color (Colburn et al., 2021; Raymond et al., 2018). This historic pattern is reflected in the
sample for this study. Table 3 describes the average demographic characteristics of the
neighborhoods where home purchases occurred.
Table3DemographicCharacteristicsofSingleFamilyRentalNeighborhoods,byBuyer
Type
LargeCorporate
Buyer
OtherCorporate
Buyers
PercentRenters 33% 37%
PercentNon‐white 69% 53%
PercentImmigrant 18% 22%
PovertyRate 0.13 0.14
Large corporate buyers purchase in areas that are, on average, 69% people of color, while
avoiding areas with high percentages of rental housing, or high poverty rates. Table 4 depicts the
demographic characteristics associated with each type of large corporate buyer. Among large
corporate buyers, single family rentals and rent-to-own firms are particularly focused on racially
segregated areas. They purchase homes in areas that are, on average, 84% non-white, which
nonetheless have low (12-15%_ poverty rates, and low percentage of first-generation immigrants
(13-12%).
Table4DemographicCharacteristicsofLargeCorporateBuyerPurchases,byFirmtype
Rent‐To‐
Own
SingleFamily
Rental
Trading
Platform
PercentRenters 33% 38% 29%
PercentNonwhite 84% 84% 60%
PercentImmigrant 13% 12% 21%
PovertyRate 0.12 0.15 0.11
On average, most corporate buyers reduced purchases in areas that experienced increased
housing distress during the pandemic. However, large corporate buyers did the reverse,
increasingly focusing purchases in areas hit hard by the pandemic, as depicted in Table 5. In
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
15
Table 5, to understand which housing markets were most affected by the pandemic, we rely on
Urban Institute indices capturing a variety of COVID19 impacts. Table 5 displays average
measures of COVID19 Impact, Equity, and Housing Instability for the neighborhoods where
single family homes were purchased before and during the pandemic by large and other
corporate buyers
1
. The COVID19 Impact index identifies areas with high numbers of uninsured,
and high rates of job loss during the pandemic. The Equity Index is a composite measure of
poverty rates, immigrant and non-white households. The Housing Insecurity Risk Index
identifies areas with high housing cost burden, overcrowding, rental households, poverty rates
and unemployment.
During the pandemic, large corporate buyers increased investments in areas with higher
COVID19 impacts, and higher housing instability risk. At the same time, other corporations’
purchases in areas impacted by COVID19, or with high housing instability fell. Investment by
large corporate buyers in areas that have higher socioeconomic status fell.
Table5LargeCorporateBuyersIncreasedPurchasesinPlacesHitHardbyCOVID19
Pre‐Pandemic Pandemic Change
COVID19ImpactIndex
OtherCorporations 0.59 0.56 ‐0.05
LargeCorporatebuyers 0.54 0.56 0.03
EquityIndex
OtherCorporations 0.61 0.57 ‐0.07
LargeCorporatebuyers 0.69 0.70 0.01
HousingInstabilityIndex
OtherCorporations 0.56 0.55 ‐0.03
LargeCorporatebuyers 0.52 0.52 0.00
The pandemic response of large corporate firms varied by type of firm. Table 6 shows a
breakdown of firms which could be clearly identified as practicing one of three business models:
Rent-To-Own, Single-Family-Rental, or Trading-Platform. After the pandemic, single family
rental operators and rent-to-own firms expanded their footprint into areas that had a higher
housing instability risk, and areas with higher poverty rates, people of color, and immigrants.
Table 6 depicts the average index quantile for each property purchased by Rent-To-Own, Single
Family Rental, and Trading Platforms. Single Family Rental firms make purchases in areas that
have an equity index at the 80
th
pctile, suggesting that they are purchasing primarily in areas
where more residents are people of color, immigrant, or high poverty. Rent-to-Own and Single
Family Rental firms increased their purchases in places that were hardest hit by COVID19, and
in places that have high housing instability risk.
1
These indices are composite measures created by the Urban Institute using ACS2015-2019 census tract level data
meant to predict where housing distress would occur – see https://www.urban.org/features/where-prioritize-
emergency-rental-assistance-keep-renters-their-homes.
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
16
Table6LargeCorporateInvestorsandDisadvantagedCommunities
Pre‐Pandemic Pandemic Change
COVID19ImpactIndex
Rent‐to‐Own 0.54 0.63 0.09
SingleFamilyRental 0.61 0.68 0.07
TradingPlatform 0.53 0.49‐0.04
EquityIndex
Rent‐to‐Own 0.77 0.80 0.03
SingleFamilyRental 0.80 0.80 0.00
TradingPlatform 0.65 0.64‐0.01
HousingInstabilityIndex
Rent‐to‐Own 0.52 0.55 0.02
SingleFamilyRental 0.56 0.62 0.07
TradingPlatform 0.49 0.45‐0.04
Conversely, trading platforms purchased more homes in places with relatively higher
socioeconomic status, lower poverty rates, and lower housing instability risk. After the
pandemic, they shifted purchasing patterns to places with lower housing instability and less
COVID19 impact.
TradingPlatformsandSFRPurchasesConcentratedinAtlanta
The shift in demographics described in the previous section is in part driven by shifts in urban
region. Trading platforms and single family rental operators were extremely concentrated in
Atlanta, with over half of all SFR purchases concentrated in DeKalb County, GA, and over half
of all trading platform purchases concentrated in Gwinnett County, GA. After the pandemic,
SFR purchases fell in DeKalb but increased in Gwinnett. Trading Platform purchases fell in
Gwinnett but increased elsewhere in Atlanta, as well as in Tampa and Miami.
In our sample, 17% of purchases of single family rentals were by large corporate landlords; the
remaining purchasers of single family rentals were by other firms. To understand these patterns
of investments, we created spatial path maps of purchaser locations for each county in our study,
displayed in Figure 4.
Figure 4 displays the location of corporations purchasing single family rentals in Atlanta, Tampa
and Miami. Atlanta buyers are concentrated in Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Washington DC
and Austin, TX. Tampa buyers are similarly located, but with a stronger contingent from Atlanta
and New York City. Miami buyers are bifurcated, with Broward county investors drawing from a
similar geography as Tampa and Atlanta; Palm Beach buyers are concentrated heavily in
northeastern cities from Maryland to Connecticut.
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
17
Figure4SpatialAnalysisofSingleFamilyRentalBuyers
GwinnettCounty,GA
DeKalbCounty,GA
PinellasCounty,FL
HillsboroughCounty,FL
BrowardCounty,FL PalmBeachCounty,FL
OpportunityZones
One goal of this analysis was to understand whether opportunity zones provided attractive
investment opportunities for large corporate landlords. To understand these patterns, we
examined apartment purchases in designated opportunity zones, in census tracts that were
qualified (but not designated) as opportunity zones, both before and after the pandemic. No
consistent or significant pattern emerged regarding the purchase of apartment buildings in
opportunity zones. We then examined single family rental transactions. From 2019 Q2 to 2021
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
18
Q2, we found that purchases in designated opportunity zones fell by -17%, but rose 18% in
qualified census tracts.
As transactions were falling, prices were rising in designated opportunity zones. In every county
except for DeKalb County, GA, prices rose 5% more quickly in designated opportunity zones
than elsewhere. The pattern is reversed in DeKalb County, where prices rose by 42% in
designated opportunity zones, but far faster - by 87% - in qualified tracts. Because of the high
volume of sales in this county, once DeKalb is included in the overall average, prices rose
slightly more quickly in qualified census tracts (56%) than in designated opportunity zones
(52%).
To better describe this variation, we estimate a quantile regression predicting median prices with
dummy variables for opportunity zones, pre/post pandemic, large corporate buyers, and
interaction terms between all three. We find that prices rose during the pandemic by an average
of $39,100. On average, opportunity zones are associated with -$15,100 lower SFR sales prices,
and overall, large corporate buyers purchase homes for $44,365 more than other buyers. During
the pandemic, prices rose less in designated opportunity zones than elsewhere by -$15,000.
Large corporations on average pay $12,835 more for homes in opportunity zones; however, this
price premium was not affected by the pandemic. There was no significant difference between
median prices paid for SFRs by large corporations after the pandemic in opportunity zones
compared to other types of purchases.
Discussion
Because the pandemic affected the employment and earnings of low and moderate income
employees in the transportation and hospitality sectors, we expect unpaid rent to be far higher
among rental properties. Declining rent rolls could convince some small operators of rental
properties to sell, and there has been some concern about increased presence of large corporate
landlords among apartment complexes. However, we found very little to no evidence of
increases in large corporate investments in apartment buildings before or after the pandemic.
Large corporate buyers were instead focused in the single family rental space.
At the outset of the pandemic, there were expectations that the economic crisis might create
another housing crisis. Corporate buyers prepared for another opportunity to invest cheaply in
single family homes. However, due to the distribution of economic distress which fell
disproportionately on renters and the relatively robust federal foreclosure prevention policies,
there was no collapse in prices.
This research did not find any combined effect of the pandemic housing crisis and opportunity
zone tax benefits on large corporations’ residential investment patterns. While we had expected
that, if opportunity zones presented valuable tax benefits to investors, we might find sales
volumes increase in these areas; or if tax benefits are capitalized into price, that prices are higher
or rise more quickly, particularly when purchases are made by sophisticated buyers like large
corporations. Contrary to our expectations, this analysis of opportunity zones shows that on
average, prices rose more slowly in designated opportunity zones between 2019-2021 when
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
19
compared to qualified census tracts within the same county and state. Moreover, despite price
declines, purchases declined in opportunity zones relative to similar areas in the post-pandemic
period. One reason for this may be that large corporate SFR seems focused on moderate income
Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, not high-poverty areas. Opportunity zones have an average
poverty rate of 26.4%, and are 57% non-white. Large corporate firms focused purchases in
communities with a far lower poverty rate of 13-14%, which were 84% non-white. A second
possible reason for this outcome is that during the pandemic, large corporations increasingly
focused purchases in areas experiencing housing instability, which were highly impacted by
COVID19, which may not have overlapped with opportunity zone geography. A third reason is
that this analysis combined all types of large corporate purchases. Given that trading platforms,
single family rental and rent-to-own firms have different profit motives and geographical
distributions, further research should examine whether an effect is found for particular types of
firms.
We analyzed the spatial location of all investors in single family rentals for each county in our
study. While there is a national market for real estate in Atlanta, Miami and Florida, there is
evidence of a regional pattern of demand, with buyers predominantly located in other sunbelt
cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin, and Atlanta. Significant exceptions include clusters of
buyers in major metropolitan areas like Chicago and New York City.
During the pandemic period, large corporate buyers continued to slowly accumulate properties.
These firms’ purchases comprised about 17% of purchases of SFR. Trading platforms reduced
their purchases during the pandemic, relative to earlier years, and avoided home purchases in
places with high COVID19 impact, and high housing instability. Despite rising prices in 2020
and 2021, single family rental operators accelerated their purchases. While in 2019, institutional
single family rental firms purchased around 1,000 homes a quarter in our study area, in Q2 2021
they purchased 1,890, or nearly double the normal amount. Already highly concentrated in
nonwhite, segregated areas, they increasingly focused purchases in areas impacted by COVID19,
with high housing instability.
Prior research has identified concerns with large corporate single family rentals. These firms
have an established record of high hidden fees, aggressive rent increases, high eviction rates, and
poor maintenance (August & Walks, 2018; Frankel & Keating, 2018; Raymond et al., 2018). In
this study, we find that corporate buyers of single family rentals comprise 17% of purchases in
Atlanta, Tampa and Miami, and focus their purchases in predominantly Black and non-white
Hispanic areas, which has been found in other studies to crowd out homeownership. These firms
have achieved high market shares in submarkets in southeastern cities, and continue to add
properties over time, which could lead to a decline in the competitiveness of these rental
markets. As these investors increase their holdings in southeastern cities, policy and regulation
around rents, eviction, and maintenance will be an important area for policymakers.
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
20
References
August, M., & Walks, A. (2018). Gentrification, suburban decline, and the financialization of
multi-family rental housing: The case of Toronto. Geoforum, 89, 124–136.
Batko, DuBois, Nicole, Narayanan, Ajjit, MacDonald, Graham, Williams, Abigail, Greene,
Solomon, & Cunningham, Mary. (2021). Where to Prioritize Emergency Rental Assistance to
Keep Renters in Their Homes Technical Appendix. Urban Institute.
https://www.urban.org/features/where-prioritize-emergency-rental-assistance-keep-renters-their-
homes
BNY Mellon. (2018, July 2). BNY Mellon and Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Company
Complete Exchange of Ownership Stakes in Amherst Capital for Minority Interest in Amherst
Holdings. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bny-mellon-and-texas-treasury-
safekeeping-trust-company-complete-exchange-of-ownership-stakes-in-amherst-capital-for-
minority-interest-in-amherst-holdings-300674827.html
Buchak, G., Matvos, G., Piskorski, T., & Seru, A. (n.d.). Why is Intermediating Houses so
Difficult? Evidence from iBuyers. 77.
Burke, M. (2021, November 18). Cerberus Scores $616M CMBS Loan on FirstKey Homes SFR
Portfolio. Commercial Observer. https://commercialobserver.com/2021/11/cerberus-capital-
management-firstkey-homes-morgan-stanley-cmbs-single-family-rental-housing/
Chandler, A. (n.d.). Offerpad, a Leading Tech-enabled Real Estate Solutions Center, to Become
Publicly Traded following Completed Business Combination with Supernova Partners
Acquisition Company. Retrieved December 10, 2021, from https://investor.offerpad.com/news-
releases/news-details/2021/Offerpad-a-Leading-Tech-enabled-Real-Estate-Solutions-Center-to-
Become-Publicly-Traded-following-Completed-Business-Combination-with-Supernova-
Partners-Acquisition-Company/default.aspx
Clark, P. (2019, November 12). Starwood Buys Houses in Return to Single-Family Rentals.
Bloomberg.Com. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-12/starwood-said-to-buy-
houses-in-return-to-single-family-rentals
Clark, P. (2021, October 26). Housing Market Disruptor Banks on Help from Blackstone. Wealth
Management. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-26/a-new-housing-market-
disruptor-banks-on-help-from-blackstone
Clark, P., Buhayar, N., options, S. more sharing, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Email,
URLCopied!, C. L., & Print. (2021, November 12). Zillow’s home sales fatten inventory for Wall
Street landlords. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2021-
11-11/zillows-home-sales-fatten-inventory-for-wall-street-landlords
CNBC. (2018, April 30). Amherst Capital Management. CNBC.
https://www.cnbc.com/delivering-alpha-amherst-capital-management/
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
21
Colburn, G., Walter, R. J., & Pfeiffer, D. (2021). Capitalizing on Collapse: An Analysis of
Institutional Single-Family Rental Investors. Urban Affairs Review, 57(6), 1590–1625.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087420922910
Corbishley, N. (2021, January 4). Wall Street Mega-Landlord Blackstone Plans to Benefit From
Another Crisis. Truthout. https://truthout.org/articles/wall-street-mega-landlord-blackstone-
plans-to-benefit-from-another-crisis/
Demers, A., & Eisfeldt, A. L. (2018). Total returns to single‐family rentals. Real Estate
Economics.
Dezember, R. (2019, November 21). Blackstone Moves Out of Rental-Home Wager With a Big
Gain. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/blackstone-moves-out-of-rental-home-
wager-with-a-big-gain-11574345608
Fields, D. (2019). Automated landlord: Digital technologies and post-crisis financial
accumulation. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 0308518X19846514.
Fields, D., & Rogers, D. (2021). Towards a critical housing studies research agenda on platform
real estate. Housing, Theory and Society, 38(1), 72–94.
Frankel, T., & Keating, D. (2018, December 25). Eviction filings and code complaints: What
happened when a private equity firm became one city’s biggest homeowner. Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/eviction-filings-and-code-complaints-what-
happened-when-a-private-equity-firm-became-one-citys-biggest-
homeowner/2018/12/25/995678d4-02f3-11e9-b6a9-0aa5c2fcc9e4_story.html
Gomory, H. (2021). The Social and Institutional Contexts Underlying Landlords’ Eviction
Practices. Social Forces, soab063. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soab063
Grant, P. (2021, June 22). Blackstone Bets $6 Billion on Buying and Renting Homes. Wall Street
Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/blackstone-bets-6-billion-on-buying-and-renting-homes-
11624359600
Lambie-Hanson, L., Li, W., & Slonkosky, M. (2018). Investing in Elm Street: What Happens
When Firms Buy Up Houses? Economic Insights, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, 9–14.
Lambie-Hanson, L., Li, W., & Slonkosky, M. (2019). Institutional Investors and the US Housing
Recovery.
Looney, A. (2018, February 26). Will Opportunity Zones help distressed residents or be a tax cut
for gentrification? Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2018/02/26/will-
opportunity-zones-help-distressed-residents-or-be-a-tax-cut-for-gentrification/
Mann, J. (2021, October 15). Sylvan Road buys more than $7M in Bham houses from US Home
Aggregation. Birmingham Business Journal.
https://www.bizjournals.com/birmingham/news/2021/10/15/sylvan-road-buys-from-us-home-
aggregation.html
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
22
Mari, F. (2020, March 4). A $60 Billion Housing Grab by Wall Street. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/magazine/wall-street-landlords.html
McArdle, M. (2021, November 9). Opinion | Zillow sent its algorithm to take on the housing
market. The housing market won. Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/09/zillow-sent-its-algorithm-take-housing-
market-housing-market-won/
Merle, R. (2020, July 6). Evictions likely to skyrocket this summer as jobs remain scarce. Black
renters will be hardest hit. - The Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/06/eviction-moratoriums-starwood/
Parker, W. (2021a, November 5). Single-Family Rental Firms Eye Zillow’s Housing Stock. Wall
Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/single-family-rental-firms-eye-zillows-housing-
stock-11636134368
Parker, W. (2021b, November 9). Building and Renting Single-Family Homes Is Top-
Performing Investment. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/building-and-renting-
single-family-homes-is-top-performing-investment-11636453800
Pfeiffer, D., Schafran, A., & Wegmann, J. (2020). Vulnerability and opportunity: Making sense
of the rise in single-family rentals in US neighbourhoods. Housing Studies, 1–21.
Pretium. (2021, January 11). Pretium, Ares Management and Front Yard Residential Complete
First-Ever Single-Family Rental Take-Private Transaction. Pretium Partners.
https://pretium.com/pretium-ares-management-and-front-yard-residential-complete-first-ever-
single-family-rental-take-private-transaction/
Raymond, E. L., Duckworth, R., Miller, B., Lucas, M., & Pokharel, S. (2018). From foreclosure
to eviction: Housing insecurity in corporate-owned single-family rentals. Cityscape, 20(3), 159–
188.
Raymond, E. L., Miller, B., McKinney, M., & Braun, J. (2021). Gentrifying Atlanta: Investor
Purchases of Rental Housing, Evictions, and the Displacement of Black Residents. Housing
Policy Debate, 1–17.
Sage, A. R. (2019). Land of opportunity: Early indicators of the opportunity zone program’s
impact on real estate transaction prices [Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology].
https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/123925
Sirota, D., Perez, A., & Poster, D. S. of the D. (2021, May 21). Charles Koch funded eviction
push while investing in real estate companies. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2021/may/21/charles-koch-foundation-eviction-real-estate
Starwood Capital Group. (2021, October 15). Starwood Capital Group Closes Opportunistic
Real Estate Fund At $10 Billion. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/starwood-capital-
group-closes-opportunistic-real-estate-fund-at-10-billion-301401087.html
PLANNING + PROPERTY LAB at GEORGIA TECH
23
Suggs, D. (2021, June 24). FirstKey Homes purchases huge Atlanta single-family rental portfolio
for $56M. Atlanta Business Chronicle.
https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2021/06/24/firstkey-homes-buys-270-unit-portfolio-
for-56m.html
Sylvan, R. (n.d.). The Sylvan Road Story. Sylvan Road. Retrieved November 18, 2021, from
https://sylvanroad.com/about/the-sylvan-road-story/
Theodos, B., Hangen, E., González, J., & Meixell, B. (2020). An early assessment of opportunity
zones for equitable development projects. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.
TheRealDeal. (2021, July 21). Four Landlords Allegedly Evicted 5,000 Renters During
Moratorium. https://therealdeal.com/2021/07/21/four-landlords-allegedly-pushed-out-5000-
renters-during-moratorium/
Warnica, R. (2021, August 7). Pretium Partners is under investigation. Critics ask (again) why a
major Canadian pension fund formed an $870M. The Toronto Star.
https://www.thestar.com/business/2021/08/07/pretium-partners-is-under-congressional-
investigation-and-critics-are-asking-again-why-a-major-canadian-pension-fund-formed-a-870-
million-partnership-with-the-company.html
Weiss, B. M. (2020). Opportunity Zones, 1031 Exchanges, and Universal Housing Vouchers
(SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 3898173). Social Science Research Network.
https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3898173
