Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff has spotlighted a surge in corporate landlords buying up homes in Georgia, intensifying a housing crisis that's displacing residents and inflating rents, drawing on findings from a Georgia State University report and a Government Accountability Office study from 2024. According to FOX 5 Atlanta, the 2024 report disclosed that around one in four single-family renter homes in the metro Atlanta area were corporate-owned, a figure that has since climbed to 30 percent, in some counties the rate is allegedly even higher, nearing 90 percent.
Ossoff's inquiry, which includes demands for data from large out-of-state companies such as Invitation Homes and Main Street Renewal amongst others, seeks to craft a transparent account of the predatory purchasing patterns these firms engage in and the subsequent strain they place on the viability of homeownership and the equity of tenant treatment, he set a July 1 deadline for the requested information. Accounts of tenants struggling with extended repair times and arbitrary fees were highlighted at a recent news conference, including Patrick Colson-Price who, after renting a Smyrna house managed by Invitation Homes, encountered a yard littered with dangerous detritus and observed a disheartening unresponsiveness to maintenance requests over several years, Colson-Price's testimony was detailed in a story from Atlanta News First.
The senator has made a concerted effort to reveal the waning rights of Georgia renters, sharing stories from disgruntled tenants like Shana Brooks-Wilhite, "We're not humans to them, we're dollar signs," she told Atlanta News First, after experiencing carbon monoxide leaks in her home and receiving inadequate customer service from her landlord, Invitation Homes, Ossoff has encouraged other Georgians with similar experiences to step forward and share their stories.
While corporate landlords defend their role as providers of housing options, attorney Esther Graff-Radford cited numerous instances of tenant mistreatment including outsourced maintenance requests leading to unsafe living conditions, in one interview, Graff-Radford argued that these companies "prioritize profit over my client’s safety," as reported by Atlanta News First.
