For years, activists and government officials have criticized the growing presence of large institutional investors in the single-family rental market. This scrutiny has sparked efforts to restrict corporate ownership of such properties. Now, a new analysis from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project is shining a spotlight on another corner of the housing market: multifamily apartments. The report’s findings could have significant implications for commercial real estate stakeholders.
According to the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, private equity firms now own at least 8,200 apartment buildings across the United States, encompassing roughly 2.2 million units—about 10% of all apartments nationwide. This figure, sourced from Yardi Matrix and Lexis Nexis, includes student, affordable, and senior housing. All of which are categories not always counted in standard apartment tallies. The pace of acquisition has accelerated rapidly; since 2021, private equity firms have snapped up 930,000 units (42% of their total holdings), and dating back to 2018, they have acquired 1.4 million units (62%).
The scale of ownership is concentrated among a few major players. Blackstone leads the pack with more than 230,000 units, followed by Greystar, which operates 138,000 units. Geographically, private equity ownership is tightly clustered in a handful of states. Texas, Florida, California, Georgia, and North Carolina account for 55% of the total units. Texas alone is home to 1,500 private equity multifamily properties—about 18.3% of the national sum by building count—and unit count comes out to 440,000, or roughly 20% of the total. In both Georgia and North Carolina, private equity firms own 20% of all apartment units.
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When measured as a share of each state’s total apartment stock, the concentration becomes even more pronounced. Georgia tops the list, with 22.8% of its apartments owned by private equity, followed by North Carolina (20.1%), Colorado (18.9%), Texas (18%), and Florida (17.3%). Other states with significant private equity presence include Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Virginia.
At the metro level, Dallas, Atlanta and Houston lead in the number of private equity-owned apartment units, with Dallas alone accounting for 192,431 units. In cities including Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte and Denver, private equity firms control more than a quarter of all apartment housing.
This concentration of ownership is particularly notable in the Sunbelt states, where private equity investment in multifamily properties has surged. These same states—Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Texas, and Florida—are also experiencing some of the steepest increases in the number of “cost-burdened” renters, defined as households paying at least 30% of their income on rent. For example, Arizona saw the share of cost-burdened tenants rise from 46.5% in 2019 to 54% in 2023. Similar trends are evident in Nevada, Georgia, Florida, and Texas, where the proportion of renters struggling to afford as housing continues to climb.
For the commercial real estate sector, these findings highlight a growing influence of private equity in shaping the nation’s rental housing market. The concentration of ownership in key states and metro areas, coupled with rising rent burdens, signals potential challenges ahead for affordability, regulation, and investment strategy in multifamily real estate. As policymakers and the public debate the role of institutional investors in housing, the industry may need to prepare for increased scrutiny and possible regulatory changes.
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