With Moratorium Gone, Corporate Landlords Steadily Increase Eviction Actions

Since the start of the pandemic, private equity firms and other corporate landlords have filed to evict more than 124,000 families in counties throughout Georgia, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Tennessee, and Nevada. These eviction actions took place despite the existence of multiple national programs intended to halt evictions and assist indebted renters.

In January, Congress appropriated over $46 billion in direct financial assistance to support renters. Nevertheless, corporate landlords continued with eviction filings, filing more than 79,000 eviction actions since the start of the year. $38 billion of the funds appropriated were still available at the end of August; however, corporate landlords have increased eviction filings in many cities and states.

In at least 20 counties where we have tracked eviction filings, corporate landlords filed more evictions in September than August.

In August, the U.S. Supreme Court ended the federal eviction moratorium, which helped keep families in their homes throughout the pandemic. Other state and local eviction moratoriums have recently ended or will end soon.

As moratoriums have ended, many corporate landlords have become more aggressive in their eviction efforts, filing at least 14,601 evictions in September alone– a 21% increase over the previous month.

–       Georgia:  In September, corporate landlords filed at least6,546 eviction actions in Fulton, Gwinnett, DeKalb, Clayton, and Chatham counties. Throughout these counties, corporate landlords were responsible for more than 76% of all evictions filed in September.

–       Texas: Corporate landlords filed at least 2,822eviction actions in September in Harris (Houston), Tarrant (Fort Worth), and Travis (Austin) counties combined – a 25% increase over last month. In both Harris and Tarrant counties, corporate landlords were responsible for more than half of all September filings.

–       Tennessee: InShelby County (Memphis), corporate landlords filed at least 1,090 evictions in September – 28% more than August. Corporate landlords were responsible for at least 54% of all eviction filings in the county last month.

–       Florida: In August,corporate landlords filed at least 2,876 eviction actions in several counties throughout the state – a 20% increase over August.

–       Nevada: Corporate landlords filed at least 1,267 evictions in Clark County (Las Vegas).

Some of the most notable filers in September include:

–       Blue Magma Residential: Filed at least 211 eviction actions in September. Since the start of the pandemic, Blue Magma Residential has filed at least 1,180 eviction actions. Blue Magma Residential filed the majority of these 211 eviction actions in eight residential communities across Fulton, DeKalb, and Clayton counties.

–       American Landmark Apartments/ Electra America: Filed at least 172 eviction actions in September, including 91 filings in Harris County, Texas and 31 in DeKalb County, Georgia. To date, the company has filed at least 850 evictions since the start of the year.

–       Bridge Investment Group: Filed at least 161 eviction actions in September and has filed at least 417 evictions since January. 155 of these evictions were filed in Gwinnett and Fulton counties.

–       Olive Tree Holdings: Filed at least 158 eviction actions. 128 of these evictions – or 81% — were filed in Georgia.

–       Atlantic & Pacific Companies: Filed at least 153 eviction actions. 100 of these evictions were filed in Fulton County alone.

–       CF Real Estate Services: Filed at least 149 eviction actions – all of which occurred in Georgia.Since the start of the year, CF Real Estate Services has filed to 356 eviction actions.

–       Investcorp: Investcorp, a private equity/alternative investment firm from Bahrain, filed at least 144 eviction actions – all of which occurred in Georgia.136 of these evictions were filed in Georgia. This year, Investcorp has filed at least 415 evictions.

–       Invitation Homes: Filed at least 101 eviction actions in September. Invitation homes has filed 824 eviction actions since the start of this year and over 1,300 evictions since the pandemic started last March.

In total, there were 21 landlords that filed 100 or more evictions in September. Together, these 21 companies filed 2,739 eviction actions – roughly 19% of all the evictions filed by corporate landlords this month.

The Private Equity Stakeholder Project submitted testimony for the October 21, 2021, Senate Banking Committee hearing on “How Private Equity Landlords are Changing the Housing Market.” Our testimony focused on a particularly important aspect of this issue: private equity’s growing role in owning manufactured home communities. We told the Committee in our testimony that we have seen private equity firms and institutional investors exploit the unique ownership structure of manufactured homes to generate outsized profits. Read our full testimony here.

Top 50 eviction filers in September and their total number of filings in 2021.