ABSTRACT
Corporate landlords buy single-family rental homes en masse and employ property technologies to execute fully automated transactions and tenant communication systems. The rapid emergence of corporate landlords is inseverable from the property technologies that power the practice. As such, corporate landlords using property technology to mass acquire and rent single-family homes is referred to as ‘corporate-tech landlordism’. This new era of landlordism is changing the nature of the landlord-tenant relationships and highlights gaps in the effectiveness of local law to protect tenants’ rights.
Property technologies used to purchase single-family homes at scale monopolize target urban, suburban, and rural markets and rapidly deplete housing stock for prospective buyers in unprecedented ways. Automated property management and tenant communication systems leave tenants with few alternatives to address conditions violations. Corporate incentives to maximize profit for investors help corporate-tech landlords avoid maintenance requests and other landlord responsibilities. Additionally, rent pricing technologies identify ideal conditions for coordinated rent hikes, fee extractions, and bulk evictions, thereby exacerbating housing insecurity.
Corporate-tech landlordism is changing landlord-tenant law. As this article shows, state law is unequipped to address the full scope of corporate-tech business across the country. The article explores the impact of corporate-tech landlords on housing markets and landlord-tenant relations. The article argues that Congress must use Commerce Clause power to address corporate-tech business activity and their use of property technologies. Reform should create federal tenant protections to establish a more egalitarian distribution of power and promote accountability. While landlord-tenant law has historically been local law, the new era of corporate-tech landlordism urges our law makers to confront the need for federal intervention.
Humber, Nadiyah, Corporate-tech Landlordism – The New Era (August 1, 2024), Stanford Technology Law Review (forthcoming).
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