The Federal Trade Commission issued a request for public comment on Wednesday on potential orders that seek to understand how large-scale single-family rental owners and operators have affected home prices and rents across the country.
The commission voted to authorize a Federal Register notice seeking public comment on potential orders that would inform an FTC study of large single-family rental investors.
The study would cover investors that own more than 1,000 single-family rental homes, according to the new release. If enacted, the orders would seek information from more than 30 of these companies about their corporate structure, housing inventory, income, business plans, growth plan, competition, prices and expenses.
Victoria Graham, a spokesperson for the FTC’s Office of Public Affairs, told Multifamily Dive that the commission does not have a specific list of companies that it plans to look at.
Public input
“As Americans face a housing shortage and pay soaring rents, it’s vital to understand the role played by large institutional investors,” Lina Khan, chair of the FTC, said in the announcement. “This proposed study would shed much-needed light on the mega-investors that have amassed huge portfolios of single-family rental units and potentially contributed to the housing challenges that Americans face.”
The FTC has requested public input on which entities may qualify as mega-investors, as well as the practicality of the orders as outlined in the notice. As part of this study, the commission has proposed compiling a comprehensive property list that would link individual single-family rental properties to their owner entities.
“Although this information is already publicly available at the state and county level, its disaggregated nature and indirect ownership structures involving opaquely named shell companies complicates the ability to fully assess the scale and scope of mega SFR investors’ property holdings,” the notice reads.
The commission approved the order by a 5-0 vote. The notice is not yet published in the Federal Register; once it is, members of the public will have 60 days to provide their comments.
This announcement comes less than one week before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. In a statement issued alongside the FTC’s announcement, Commissioner Andrew Ferguson, whom Trump has appointed to succeed Khan as FTC chair, and fellow Republican Commissioner Melissa Holyoak expressed their disapproval of the timing of the notice but said that the study itself is a good idea.
“I look forward to reviewing the comments submitted by the public before making any subsequent determination about whether to seek the Trump [Office of Management and Budget]’s approval to commence the study,” the statement reads.
