The Los Angeles City Council Wednesday commissioned a report on home ownership trends as a way to gain clarity on housing policies and inform future initiatives to support young families seeking property in the city.
In a unanimous vote, the council approved a motion introduced by Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez in August 2023, which called for the Los Angeles Housing Department to conduct a study on the concentration of ownership and corporatization trends in the city’s housing stock over the last five years.
“We cannot discern between the LLCs and how the tax structures are for the identification of the ownership models. I introduced this motion to begin the work with the Housing Department so that we could better identify pathways going forward, so we could better delineate the ownership model to help inform our policymaking,” Rodriguez said.
The Housing Department is expected to report on the following topics: the potential link between rapid ownership growth, owner behavior and renter displacement risk, property flipping, acquisition of properties from distressed small landlords and homeowners, use of organizational entities by small landlords, and to better distinguish a small landlord from a “large” landlord.
Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez supported Rodriguez’s effort, and said officials need to start talking about and implementing solutions. Hernandez requested that city departments examine potential tools at their disposal to address large corporations and institutional investors buying up homes and rental properties in bulk.
“They’re speculating on our neighborhoods and profiting off of families,” Hernandez said. “Homes that should be places where people put down roots, raise their kids and build generational wealth are increasingly treated like commodities in an investment portfolio.”
Councilman John Lee, who also voted in favor of the motion, emphasized that the issue has already been talked about.
“I don’t even know if we need a study. I think we understand why there’s more corporatization for ownership in our city,” Lee said. “The over-restrictive policies of this council. The one-sidedness that we approach housing policies with.”