By Iris Craige, Assistant Director of Policy and Advocacy

April 14, 2026

Over the past several years, Los Angeles has seen a growing number of homes sold to corporate landlords. These companies often operate through networks of LLCs and trusts, making it hard to see how much housing they actually control. On paper, they may look like many small landlords. In reality, they may  own large portfolios across the city and county.

SAJE has been tracking this issue for years. Through our research and work with tenants, we’ve seen how corporate ownership can drive rent increases, displacement, and building neglect in the quest to maximize profit for shareholders . When ownership is hidden, it’s harder to pinpoint who to hold accountable for repairs, illegal evictions, and rent increases, and it is tenants who pay the price.

This issue is not unique to L,A., and across the country corporate investors have expanded their presence in the housing market. In fact, the problem is so bad that even President Trump, a notorious slumlord (among other things), seems concerned.

Here in LA, The Housing & Homelessness Committee instructed the Los Angeles Housing Department (LAHD) to begin tracking corporate ownership and landlord behavior (CF 23-0840) this past February. Two additional motions introduced last week expand that effort. Together, these signal that the city is starting to take corporate consolidation seriously.

The committee instructed LAHD to:

• Track how many properties landlords own and how they structure their business
• Study how quickly landlords are expanding their portfolios, and how it relates to displacement
• Analyze landlord behavior, including complaints, violations, evictions and buyouts
• Study property flipping business models
• Look at how investors acquire housing from distressed homeowners and small landlords
• Expand this analysis beyond L,A. City to include countywide portfolios

This shift is meaningful, and marks the city’s focus onto not just who owns housing in Los Angeles, but how they behave. This data is useful, but it cannot protect tenants without meaningful action in response to it.

Corporate landlords rarely hold all of their properties under one name. Rather, they spread ownership across many LLCs and trusts. Without connecting these LLCs and trusts to their true owners, large landlords can continue to appear small on paper while operating at a massive scale in practice. This creates a serious risk. If the city moves forward with exemptions for so-called small landlords without fully understanding ownership, corporate operators will be able to sidestep regulations designed to hold them accountable. Without ownership transparency, the system will miss the corporate landlords they mean to hold accountable.

The council’s instructions are a step in the right direction. SAJE will continue to work towards policies that empower tenants. We thank Council Members Eunisses Hernandez and Monica Rodriguez for their leadership, and hope to work with them to bring accountability to corporate landlords.