The Influence of Institutional Single-Family Rental Investors on Homeownership: Who Gets Targeted and Pushed Out of the Local Market?

Abstract

The emergence of institutional single-family rental investors in local housing markets is increasingly concerning to policymakers and planners. This study examines how their rising presence in the single-family housing market has impacted homeownership. Leveraging both granular spatial and temporal variations in large investment firms’ transaction activities over 800 neighborhoods in the Atlanta metropolitan area between 2007 and 2016, I find that their concentrated investment in single-family rentals weakened local homeownership, mainly for Black. In contrast, evidence does not support the claim that smaller scale corporate investors dampened homeownership. The institutional scale matters in explaining a significantly diminished homeownership during this period.