Unveiling the Corporate Landlords Behind Home Rentals in California

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.2 • 727 Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2023

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Large corporations have quietly bought large collections of homes in California, mostly for use as rental properties, often hidden behind complex networks of shell companies. A Sacramento appraiser has begun to crack the code, revealing more than ten thousand properties in California owned by one company, Invitation Homes. He joins us, with other experts, to discuss the extent of corporate home ownership across the state and its impact on renters, homebuyers, and the real estate market. Guests: Alex Lee, assemblymember, California State Assembly - he represents California’s 24th Assembly District which includes the Alameda County communities of Fremont, Newark, and Sunol, and the Santa Clara County communities of Milpitas and San Jose Ryan Lundquist, residential appraiser and housing analyst, Sacramento area Alana Semuels, economic correspondent, TIME magazine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:49.6	From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:58.0	Over the last decade, investors have targeted a new asset class, single-family homes, which they buy and convert into rentals. That means that ordinary people trying to buy are in competition with investors who didn't have to go get a mortgage.
1:04.0	The companies claim that they only buy a small percentage of homes in any given market, but because they use shell companies, it's hard to know for sure
1:11.5	who owns what.
1:12.8	Now, a real estate appraiser has put together an accounting of the holdings of just one
1:17.0	large landlord, and it's thousands of homes in Sacramento alone.
1:21.4	We talk with him and experts on what corporate purchases are doing to the housing and rental
1:25.9	markets.
1:26.9	That's all coming up next after this news.
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