Institutional Landlords and Tenants’ Rights

Georgia Appleseed and other community partners have identified a common business model among institutional investors in low-income housing — institutional investors purchase properties; quickly drive up rents; impose unwarranted fees; refuse to provide upkeep or repairs; abuse eviction systems to coerce tenants; and hide from accountability. 

• Institutional landlords often seek profit through ever-increasing rents and abusive or predatory fees.
• Institutional landlords increase their profits and reduce costs by refusing to perform needed repairs, basic maintenance, security, or needed health and safety measures.
• Institutional landlords are well-positioned to abuse Georgia’s eviction and housing safety laws and ordinances.
• Profit-mongering at the expense of family and community well-being is not “investment in affordable housing.”
• Policy can support needed reforms that would protect families from abuses.

Data from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project indicates that in 2021, corporate landlords in Georgia filed to evict at least 42,629 families in Fulton, Gwinnett, DeKalb, Clayton, and Chatham counties; and 24,260 in the last quarter of 2021. This means that corporate landlords were responsible for more than 76% of all evictions filed in these counties.