Institutional SFR Ownership and Market Share: National Footprint vs. Local Geographic Concentration
A central point of contention in the debate over institutional single-family rental (SFR) ownership is the actual scale of their holdings. Free-market think tanks and industry advocates focus on national-level statistics to argue that institutional footprints are negligible, while tenant-advocacy groups and local policymakers point to extreme geographic concentration to argue that corporate landlords dominate specific neighborhoods. Both claims are mathematically accurate, representing two sides of the same coin.
National Footprint: A Tiny Fraction of Total Housing
On a national level, institutional homeownership represents a very small fraction of the U.S. housing stock.
- According to data from Parcl Labs, there are more than 82 million single-family homes in the United States. Institutional buyers—defined as firms owning at least 1,000 homes—own around 1% of the total U.S. single-family stock.
- Academic research by Gorback, Qian, and Zhu (2024) confirms that the national market share of the largest investors (the top 0.01% of firms by size, which includes 1,127 entities) peaked at only 0.9% of the single-family stock in 2019 and has since declined due to the rise of owner-occupants during the pandemic.
- Even when looking at the broader investor segment, the largest single-family rental providers, private equity real estate (PERE) firms, and rent-to-own operators (collectively referred to as Long Term Rentals, or LTRs) owned a combined 328,510 units nationwide by 2022 (across 43 identified LTRs). While this represents a dramatic increase from 2010 (when LTRs held just 0.02% of the investor market share), it remains a sliver of the overall housing market.
Local Geographic Concentration: Sun Belt Focus
While national shares are tiny, institutional landlords are highly concentrated geographically, focusing heavily on specific high-growth, low-vacancy Sun Belt metropolitan areas.
- Following Blackstone’s acquisition of Tricon Residential in early 2024, Blackstone’s combined SFR portfolio (including Tricon and Home Partners of America) totaled 61,964 homes, heavily concentrated in five markets:
- Atlanta, GA: 11,144 homes
- Dallas, TX: 5,172 homes
- Charlotte, NC: 4,710 homes
- Tampa, FL: 3,949 homes
- Phoenix, AZ: 3,801 homes
- At the neighborhood level, this concentration is even more pronounced. Gorback, Qian, and Zhu (2024) document that while the median U.S. census tract has virtually zero LTR presence, the 95th percentile tract had an LTR market share of 4.3% by 2022, and the 99th percentile tract saw LTRs owning upwards of 8% of all single-family homes (1 in 12 homes).
Fresh Redfin Data (Q1 2026): Investor Purchases Fall to Multi-Year Lows
The latest metropolitan-level transaction data from Redfin (published May 28, 2026) shows that investor purchases have cooled significantly due to elevated mortgage rates, rising property taxes, high insurance premiums, and a cooling rental market.
- Investor Purchase Volume: Real estate investors purchased 45,397 homes in Q1 2026 across 39 major metros, down 6% year-over-year to the lowest first-quarter level since 2020.
- Investor Market Share: Real estate investors accounted for 19% of all U.S. home purchases in Q1 2026, down slightly from 20% in Q1 2025.
- Methodological Caveat: Redfin’s definition of "investor" includes any institution, business, or LLC (including mom-and-pop landlords, local flippers, and family trusts). Large institutional operators make up only a small fraction of this 19% share.
- Metro-Specific Investor Shares (Q1 2026):
- Miami, FL: 33% (1,863 purchases)
- Atlanta, GA: 21% (2,918 purchases)
- Phoenix, AZ: 20% (3,072 purchases)
- Tampa, FL: 19% (1,949 purchases)
- Charlotte, NC: 18% (1,148 purchases)