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Institutional investors own the vast majority of rental units unless you arbitrarily decide to exclude multi unit housing from your metric. They owned 74.4% of

Institutional investors own the vast majority of rental units unless you arbitrarily decide to exclude multi unit housing from your metric. They owned 74.4% of rental units in 2015 https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/who-owns-rental-properties-and-is-it-changing https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/who-owns-rental-properties... Given the extensive reporting that they have been growing their share certainly it is even higher 8 years later.

smeej 3y ago
Isn't this circular? How do you define "institutional"? Is it based on number of units and/or the use of a corporate structure? Nobody is stupid enough to own an apartment complex in their own personal name without the protections of some kind of corporate structure. If that and/or a number of units owned that is lower than the size of an apartment complex are part of the definition of "institutional investor," the definition is circular.
- Guvante 3y ago
  The linked article breaks it down. By type of group that owns it. Note I messed up and it is just over 50% of units.
whimsicalism 3y ago
> Institutional investors own the vast majority of rental units This is what I mean about left-wing science denialism. Try even reading your own article 1. "According to the RHFS, individual investors were the biggest group in the rental housing market in 2015, accounting for 74.4 percent, or 16.7 million rental properties, followed by limited liability partnerships (LLPs), limited partnerships (LPs), or limited liability companies (LLCs) (14.8 percent);" This is literally the exact opposite of your claim. But let's pretend that your claim was correct: 2. They're price takers. 3. Why is this a bad thing? If this were true (it isn't), then they're basically the only people who will rent at all anymore. The alternative is net worse for affordability - places without institutional investors have far fewer shares of people renting because there is literally nobody offering places for rent. e: And of course I'm downvoted simply for pointing out that the article linked says the opposite of the claim.
- mcphage 3y ago
  > "According to the RHFS, individual investors were the biggest group in the rental housing market in 2015, accounting for 74.4 percent, or 16.7 million rental properties, followed by limited liability partnerships (LLPs), limited partnerships (LPs), or limited liability companies (LLCs) (14.8 percent);" Isn't the very next sentence "However, because the share of rental properties owned by individual investors tends to decrease with the property size, individual investors owned less than half (47.8 percent) of rental units, followed by LLPs, LPs, or LLCs (33.2 percent), trustees for estates (3.3 percent), real estate corporations (3.3 percent), and nonprofit organizations (3.2 percent)." Which makes it seem like the article is claiming the number is 52.2%—somewhere in between your original claim of 3%, and the GP's claim of 74.4%.
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    Their claim: > Institutional investors own the vast majority of rental units False - individual investors + trustees own the majority. Institutional investors are nowhere close to the size of a 'vast majority', especially when you consider that many individual investors choose to work through LLCs. My claim: > Institutional investors own less than 3% of rental homes This is referring to single-family homes - I could probably have been more explicit when using the term 'home' above, but I was also replying to a comment specifically about SFH so I thought it was obvious from context. Probably most of the discrepancy comes from 'institutional investor' not being a well defined term. If we are discussing megacorp, it is closer to the 3% number I have mentioned. If we are discussing mom & pop operating behind LLC, it is likely higher.
    - Guvante 3y ago
      Irvine Company LLC is owned by David Bren who is worth $15.3 billion. It is not as easy as "only C Corps are big"...
- Guvante 3y ago
  You were down voted for everything except that. Especially since the linked article says it is >50% per unit which supports my point. So big investors are good for housing because they increase demand for housing driving up the price because they offer rentals? You are pretending that the investors are providing the housing here while ignoring that they are taking away housing that would be available. Investors building units provide housing. Investors buying housing and renting it out do not.

smeej 3y ago

Isn't this circular? How do you define "institutional"? Is it based on number of units and/or the use of a corporate structure? Nobody is stupid enough to own an apartment complex in their own personal name without the protections of some kind of corporate structure. If that and/or a number of units owned that is lower than the size of an apartment complex are part of the definition of "institutional investor," the definition is circular.

Guvante 3y ago
The linked article breaks it down. By type of group that owns it. Note I messed up and it is just over 50% of units.

whimsicalism 3y ago

> Institutional investors own the vast majority of rental units This is what I mean about left-wing science denialism. Try even reading your own article 1. "According to the RHFS, individual investors were the biggest group in the rental housing market in 2015, accounting for 74.4 percent, or 16.7 million rental properties, followed by limited liability partnerships (LLPs), limited partnerships (LPs), or limited liability companies (LLCs) (14.8 percent);" This is literally the exact opposite of your claim. But let's pretend that your claim was correct: 2. They're price takers. 3. Why is this a bad thing? If this were true (it isn't), then they're basically the only people who will rent at all anymore. The alternative is net worse for affordability - places without institutional investors have far fewer shares of people renting because there is literally nobody offering places for rent. e: And of course I'm downvoted simply for pointing out that the article linked says the opposite of the claim.

mcphage 3y ago
> "According to the RHFS, individual investors were the biggest group in the rental housing market in 2015, accounting for 74.4 percent, or 16.7 million rental properties, followed by limited liability partnerships (LLPs), limited partnerships (LPs), or limited liability companies (LLCs) (14.8 percent);" Isn't the very next sentence "However, because the share of rental properties owned by individual investors tends to decrease with the property size, individual investors owned less than half (47.8 percent) of rental units, followed by LLPs, LPs, or LLCs (33.2 percent), trustees for estates (3.3 percent), real estate corporations (3.3 percent), and nonprofit organizations (3.2 percent)." Which makes it seem like the article is claiming the number is 52.2%—somewhere in between your original claim of 3%, and the GP's claim of 74.4%.
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  Their claim: > Institutional investors own the vast majority of rental units False - individual investors + trustees own the majority. Institutional investors are nowhere close to the size of a 'vast majority', especially when you consider that many individual investors choose to work through LLCs. My claim: > Institutional investors own less than 3% of rental homes This is referring to single-family homes - I could probably have been more explicit when using the term 'home' above, but I was also replying to a comment specifically about SFH so I thought it was obvious from context. Probably most of the discrepancy comes from 'institutional investor' not being a well defined term. If we are discussing megacorp, it is closer to the 3% number I have mentioned. If we are discussing mom & pop operating behind LLC, it is likely higher.
  - Guvante 3y ago
    Irvine Company LLC is owned by David Bren who is worth $15.3 billion. It is not as easy as "only C Corps are big"...
Guvante 3y ago
You were down voted for everything except that. Especially since the linked article says it is >50% per unit which supports my point. So big investors are good for housing because they increase demand for housing driving up the price because they offer rentals? You are pretending that the investors are providing the housing here while ignoring that they are taking away housing that would be available. Investors building units provide housing. Investors buying housing and renting it out do not.