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Jay Parsons • 1stRental Housing Economist (Apartments, SFR), Speaker and Author

Jay also has a fantastic podcast called ‘The Rent Roll’ which is a great place to talk business specific to rental housing.

Is rental housing — apartments and single-family rentals — the most fragmented major industry in the United States? When you look at data, you find that even the biggest players are rounding errors in terms of market share. Check out these stats:

1) The largest SFR owner, Progress Residential, owns 0.57% of the nation’s single-family rental homes.

2) The largest known* apartment owner, Greystar, owns 0.47% of the nation’s apartment units.

3) Combined, the top 50 SFR players own 3.67% of the market, according to an analysis of data from John Burns Research & Consulting. That means smaller players control 96.33% of the market.

4) Combined, the top 50 apartment players own 10.58% of the market, according to an analysis of data from the National Multifamily Housing Council. That means smaller players control 89.42% of the market.

Honest question: In what other industry do the largest players control such a tiny share of the market?

Truth is: Even the biggest rental housing owners are just not that big.

And let’s be honest. In such an incredibly fragmented industry, it’s massively harder for any one company — with less than 1% market share — to move the market in any meaningful way.

So when we talk about “behemoths” and “giants” in rental housing, we need to be careful not to mislead policymakers and the public. It might be helpful to include their market share in any such references. Accuracy and context do matter, right?

*Footnote: Apartment ownership rankings are based on NMHC data. A few notable owners do not report their data on units owned to NMHC; however, even if included, none would likely top 1% market share and the overall story/trend would be similar.

Can anyone think of another major U.S. industry where the largest players control such a tiny share of the market? I’m curious what else might be as fragmented and decentralized as apartments and SFR.Activate to view larger image,

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