Institutional investors in rental housing
Institutional investors appear on 151 recent papers, almost all about stock ownership; only 6 institutional-investor papers carry a housing or rent keyword. Funds now own large numbers of single-family homes and apartments in the US, Spain and elsewhere, and several governments want to restrict them. Do they raise rents, improve maintenance, or both?
What prompted this#
Since October 2025, 167 papers carry an institutional-investor keyword (116 in finance journals), with "institutional investors" on 151, mostly in studies of stock ownership and corporate governance. Only 6 of them also carry a housing, rent, home or real-estate keyword. "Rental housing" appears on 7 papers and "housing market" on 53.
Questions#
- In neighbourhoods where funds bought many homes, did rents and evictions rise faster than elsewhere, controlling for demand?
- Do institutional landlords maintain homes better (or worse) than small landlords, and do tenants stay longer?
- Would proposed bans or taxes on institutional purchases of homes lower prices for first-time buyers, or only change who rents them out?
Data that could help#
Property transaction records with buyer type (deeds data, CoreLogic, land registries), listing rents, eviction filings and code-violation records.
Next step#
Match purchases by large institutional buyers to listing rents and eviction filings at the address level and compare with nearby homes bought by individuals.