We are excited to release a new report analyzing ownership trends in Concord in light of Concord’s fight for Rent Stabilization and Just Cause protections. Our findings show that Concord’s rental market is highly concentrated among outside investors, not the local “mom-and-pop” landlords that real estate lobbyists have been claiming will be hurt by these protections.
Instead of living in “mom-and-pop” landlord units, the vast majority of Concord's tenants live in corporate housing. We find in our report that 66% of multi-family units are owned by the top 10% of landlords, or just 50 companies. Over 16,700 tenants live in these apartments, and these are the people who deserve protection — not some imagined class of small landlords.
These landlords often don’t even come from Concord — just 15% of multifamily units and 22% of all investor-owned units in Concord are owned by Concord-based investors. Even single-family homes are subject to this pattern of outside investment: Our results show that outside investors like Texas-based Invitation Homes dominate Concord’s housing market.
We also uncover in this report that Concord corporations hide their portfolios under several different shell companies. Vasona Management, Concord’s largest landlord, hides itself under seven shell corporations that own a total of 14 buildings. Vasona also recently admitted to violating state and federal civil rights laws by prohibiting children from playing outside at its complexes.