Los Angeles To Track Corporate Ownership Of Rental Housing

The city of Los Angeles will begin tracking how large corporate buyers impact the housing market by studying ownership of rental properties. 

The Los Angeles Housing Department will determine how to categorize the city's landlords and review the effects of institutional owners on tenants, homeowners and small landlords.

The department will focus on whether large owners negatively impact renters or push out individual and sometimes first-time buyers. 

Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who authored the original motion, told the council that her goal for keeping tabs on the “mass corporatization” of ownership was to better inform policymaking and avoid inadvertently creating regulations that harm smaller owners. 

Late last year, in conjunction with Rodriguez’s motion, the Housing Department released a report that found that large landlords’ share of the city’s housing stock increased markedly from 2018 to 2023. Still, that report found that the top 25 owners held more than 58,300 units that fall under the city's rent-stabilized ordinance, or almost 10% of the RSO stock.

The new study will seek to discern how these ownership trends impact tenants, would-be homebuyers and mom-and-pop landlords. It will also assess whether the city should take steps to mitigate any impacts discovered.

The study will attempt to understand ownership structures of properties to better draw lines between corporate ownership and smaller landlords, Rodriguez said. 

Some landlord groups are eager to have those lines drawn, as they could be the first step to targeted relief or assistance programs for smaller property owners. 

“Small owners, in general, own much older properties that are covered under the rent control ordinance and are really struggling,” Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles Executive Director and CEO Daniel Yukelson said. “They don't have access to tons of capital like large corporate owners do, and so they need additional relief.”  

In unincorporated Los Angeles County, those owners were able to charge an extra 1% in rent increases, and the city should do that, too, Yukelson said. The county defines small landlords as those owning 10 or fewer qualifying units. 

Large-scale and institutional landlords have taken heat from advocates as well as the federal government, though how those owners are defined isn’t standard. Legislation approved by the Senate would ban institutional buyers from purchasing single-family homes. 

Council members distinguished between smaller landlords and the institutional ones.

“Let me be clear: This is not tenants versus small landlords,” Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said. “In many cases, both are being squeezed by the same forces in today’s housing market. The real question is whether we will allow corporations to continue consolidating our housing stock.”