Wall Street won’t be relaxing its chokehold on metro Atlanta’s housing market any time soon. From Georgia’s statehouse to the nation’s Capitol, the political will to rein in powerful corporate landlords just isn’t strong enough right now.
Atlanta is one of the top housing markets nationally that investment funds have targeted since the 2008 housing crisis. Institutional investors make up over a third of recent single-family home purchases in metro Atlanta. In fact, three corporate landlords alone own almost 11% of the city’s single-family rental market — over 19,000 homes — according to a recent study from Georgia State University and Rutgers University researchers.
But that doesn’t mean policymakers have to sit back and watch as deep-pocketed investors, often camouflaged by layers of shell companies, buy up scores of entry-level homes and affordably priced apartment complexes, driving up Atlantans’ housing costs and pushing the American Dream of homeownership further out of reach.
“Private equity poses a real problem,” Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock told Atlanta Civic Circle in a statement. “A home to them is just a row on a spreadsheet tracking shareholder returns.”
Despite the concerns he expressed, Warnock didn’t point to any direct solutions.
Georgia presents especially appealing opportunities for giant real estate investment funds thanks to state laws that make the eviction process fast and easy for landlords to navigate — and to exploit.
“In Georgia, regardless of the condition of a place, you have to pay rent,” Michael Waller, executive director for the Georgia Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, said in an interview. “The place could be a terrible place to live. There could be a slumlord not living up to their obligations under the lease and under the law. But you still have to pay your rent or you’ll be evicted.”
Congressional gridlock
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon)…
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