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Landlord Statistics: Who Owns America's Rentals (2026)

Most American rentals are owned by ordinary people, not corporations. Individual investors own about 70% of US rental properties and about 70% of the units in buildings with four or fewer units, according to the Census Bureau's Rental Housing Finance Survey. If that describes you, you're running a small business, which is why property management software for small landlords exists. Every figure below names its public source.

By LandlordTested editorial teamLast reviewed

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An aerial view of a neighborhood of small houses, duplexes and apartment buildings
On this page
  1. Where these numbers come from
  2. Who owns US rental properties
  3. How much of the stock small landlords hold
  4. Rental income, expenses and financing
  5. The condition of the rental stock
  6. How many people rent
  7. Rents and affordability
  8. New supply and competition

Where these numbers come from

The ownership figures come from the Rental Housing Finance Survey (RHFS), which HUD funds and the Census Bureau runs every three years. It surveys rental properties, not tenants, so it is the best public picture of who the landlords are. The latest fully published highlights are from the 2021 survey. The Census Bureau released 2024 RHFS summary tables on February 19, 2026 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024 Rental Housing Finance Survey release, 2026, https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2026/2024-rhfs-data.html), and we’ll replace the 2021 figures once we’ve checked the new tables line by line.

Renter counts, rents and affordability come from the American Community Survey, the Census Bureau’s quarterly vacancy survey, and Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS). Each statistic lists its source, year and URL in plain text.

Who owns US rental properties

Some of the growth in LLC ownership is small landlords moving a house or duplex into an LLC for liability reasons. The survey records the legal owner, so an LLC with one rental counts the same as one with a thousand.

How much of the stock small landlords hold

That last figure is the one that matters most to this site. Roughly four out of five small rentals are run by their owners, usually without a property manager.

Rental income, expenses and financing

Put the first two numbers together and the typical unit in 2021 kept about $620 a month before debt service. Your own numbers will differ, but that’s a useful sanity check against a deal that looks too good.

The condition of the rental stock

How many people rent

The savings figure is worth keeping in mind when you set a security deposit or a move-in total. For a typical renter, first month plus a deposit can be more than they have in the bank.

Rents and affordability

The 3x-income rule many landlords use sits right on the median here. A renter spending 31% of income on housing is paying about one-third, which is what the rule allows and no more.

New supply and competition

If you own a house or a duplex in a metro with a lot of new apartment completions, expect a longer vacancy and more concessions at the next turnover. Small buildings are barely growing, so your competition is mostly the new large complex down the road.

Questions landlords ask

The questions we get most, each answered in a paragraph.

What percentage of landlords are individuals rather than companies?

In the 2021 Rental Housing Finance Survey, individual investors owned 70.2% of US rental properties and 37.6% of rental units. The gap exists because individuals mostly own small buildings. They held 72.5% of single-unit rental properties but only 4.4% of properties with 150 or more units, where LLCs and partnerships dominate. In buildings with one to four units, individuals owned about 70% of the units.

How many renter households are there in the US?

About 46.1 million households rented their home in 2024, according to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey as tabulated by the National Multifamily Housing Council. That's roughly 104 million people. The Census Bureau's quarterly survey put the homeownership rate at 65.0% in the second quarter of 2026, so about a third of households rent.

Do big investors own most single-family rentals?

No. Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies found that 25% of single-family rentals were owned by non-individual investors in 2021, up from 17% two decades earlier. That group includes LLCs and estate trusts, not only Wall Street funds. One estimate from 2018 data put the share of small rental properties owned by investors with 1,000 or more homes at just 2%.