The Real Problem With Corporate Landlords
Among tenant advocates like me, corporate landlords are notorious for squeezing renters in every imaginable way—and for setting up byzantine ownership and management structures that frustrate anyone who might complain. News that investment firms have been buying up single-family homes during the coronavirus pandemic has prompted alarms among progressive tenant advocates and conservative populists alike, and for good reason: More American families will see the kind of major and minor annoyances that tenants of corporate entities have experienced for years.
[Read: When Wall Street is your landlord]
A 2017 study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta found that to evict their tenants. suggests that such landlords are also more likely to use of eviction—and serial court filings that deepen tenants’ financial woes—as a routine business practice. Tenant advocates around the country have long observed similar patterns. Other profit-maximizing practices are less drastic but still work to renters’ disadvantage: In Los Angeles, where I work, one corporate landlord has been steadily cutting back on services and amenities, such as parking, that had been routinely offered to tenants. The same landlord is asking tenants to pay in person at off-site, third-party electronic kiosks that automatically add on extra fees. Another local corporate landlord is notorious for drafting unusually restrictive leases that charge tenants stiff fees when they slip up.
