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Toward a Methodology for Measuring Rental Property Ownership in the United States

In: Measurement of Housing and the Housing Sector

Author

Listed:
  • Stephanie Kestelman
  • Rebecca Diamond
  • John Eric Humphries
  • Kate Pennington
  • Winnie van Dijk
  • John Voorheis

Abstract

Roughly one-third of U.S. households rent their homes, yet measuring who owns rental property is difficult: ownership is frequently obscured by LLCs, partnerships, and other intermediary entities that separate legal from economic control. We develop a method that traces ownership through administrative records—combining deeds and property assessments with the Census Bureau’s Business Register, IRS Schedule K-1 filings, and SEC filings on REITs—to identify ultimate owners and construct property portfolios across the full landlord size distribution. Applying the method to 11 large CBSAs, we find that individual landlords own a majority of rental units, though their share varies meaningfully across markets. We also show that the widely used mailing-address aggregation approach both under- and over-states portfolio size in systematic ways. The method is designed to scale to national coverage and to support measurement of landlord identity, portfolio composition, and ownership concentration in U.S. rental markets. We also discuss the method’s current limitations and outline directions for refinement and validation.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Stephanie Kestelman & Rebecca Diamond & John Eric Humphries & Kate Pennington & Winnie van Dijk & John Voorheis, 2026. "Toward a Methodology for Measuring Rental Property Ownership in the United States," NBER Chapters, in: Measurement of Housing and the Housing Sector, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:15413
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rohan Ganduri & Steven Chong Xiao & Serena Wenjing Xiao, 2023. "Tracing the source of liquidity for distressed housing markets," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 51(2), pages 408-440, March.
    2. Mary Layne & Deborah Wagner & Cynthia Rothhaas, 2014. "Estimating Record Linkage False Match Rate for the Person Identification Validation System," CARRA Working Papers 2014-02, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    3. Forrest Hangen & Daniel T. O’Brien, 2025. "Linking landlords to uncover ownership obscurity," Housing Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(4), pages 940-965, April.
    4. Brian Y. An & Andrew Jakabovics & Anthony W. Orlando & Seva Rodnyansky & Eunjee Son, 2024. "Who Owns America? A Methodology for Identifying Landlords’ Ownership Scale and the Implications for Targeted Code Enforcement," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 90(4), pages 627-641, October.
    5. Deborah Wagner & Mary Lane, 2014. "The Person Identification Validation System (PVS): Applying the Center for Administrative Records Research and Applications’ (CARRA) Record Linkage Software," CARRA Working Papers 2014-01, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    6. James Mills & Raven Molloy & Rebecca Zarutskie, 2019. "Large‐Scale Buy‐to‐Rent Investors in the Single‐Family Housing Market: The Emergence of a New Asset Class," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 47(2), pages 399-430, June.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H0 - Public Economics - - General
    • L0 - Industrial Organization - - General
    • R0 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General

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