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

Stephanie Kestelman, Rebecca Diamond, John Eric Humphries, Kate Pennington, Winnie van Dijk and John Voorheis
Additional contact information
Stephanie Kestelman: Harvard University
Rebecca Diamond: Harvard University
John Eric Humphries: Yale University
Kate Pennington: U.S. Census Bureau
Winnie van Dijk: Harvard University
John Voorheis: U.S. Census Bureau

No 2531, Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers from Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University

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 recordsÑcombining deeds and property assessments with the Census Bureau's Business Register, IRS Schedule K-1 filings, and SEC filings on REITsÑto 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 large 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.

Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2026-05-01
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