The Commercial Real Estate Alpha Site

Article & research by Jay Parsons via LinkedIn <— Click here for complete story and others by Jay.

Even in the biggest players in multifamily and single-family rentals are tiny, reflecting a deeply fragmented industry that — contrary to headline narratives — remains dominated by small investors.

Check out this chart showing the market share of the leading U.S. provider in each of these key industries. The stats speak for themselves:

Greystar has gotten so big that it now owns a whopping 0.47% of the nation’s apartment units.

Progress Residential is such a behemoth that it owns an industry-leading 0.57% of U.S. single-family rentals.

Now compare those market share stats to other industries, based on data you can easily find online:

Google owns 90% of the online search market.

Visa controls 61% of credit cards among U.S. consumers.

Apple represents 53% of Americans’ cell phones.

Amazon controls 40% of online retail sales.

HCA Healthcare owns 27% of the healthcare provider network.

CVS owns 26% of American pharmacies.

Walmart has a 24% market share among U.S. grocers.

GM made 17% of American-owned vehicles.

JPMorgan Chase has 12% market share among banks.

State Farm controls 10% of the property and casualty insurance business.

Most of these names rank among the largest companies in the world.

By comparison, even the biggest owners of apartments and single-family rentals are rounding errors. Being the biggest in the market does not make them dominant players by any means.

I know the conspiracy theorists will inevitably argue: “But this isn’t true in markets like Atlanta!” And, sure, the largest SFR owner there (Progress) has a larger share in Atlanta than nationally. All of 4.5% market share in Atlanta, according to JBREC data. So, yeah, it’s a bit higher but still far lower share compared to market leaders in other industries. Let’s put the conspiracy theories to rest.

I love this about the U.S. rental housing industry. So fragmented, so diversified, and still relatively easy for new players to enter the market. The apartment and SFR markets include probably tens of thousands of owners, many of them with their own unique strategies and areas of focus.

Is there any major industry as fragmented as rental housing? Maybe restaurants? NNN?

#apartments #sfr #housing