Mecklenburg County may spend $500K to address impacts from corporate landlords
With the Charlotte area recognized as a hot spot for corporate landlords, Mecklenburg County has included funding in its recently proposed budget to keep studying how to address the industry’s impacts here.
Mecklenburg County Manager Dena Diorio recommended $500,000 in the county’s fiscal 2023 budget, released on Thursday, to “continue our research and develop strategies to address the impacts of corporate-owned housing in Mecklenburg County,” according to the budget document.
County staff has been looking into corporate landlords since earlier this year, as some of the impacts of the industry began to spill out into the open.
Earlier this month, The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer published Security for Sale, an investigation that found institutional investors owned more than 40,000 single-family homes in North Carolina, primarily in the Charlotte area and the Triangle. The series also revealed how corporate landlords can sometimes frustrate renters and alter neighborhoods..
Mecklenburg County has more than 15,000 corporate-owned homes, the Observer and News & Observer found. That comprises 5% of all single-family homes in the county and one-quarter of all rental houses. Several county officials have expressed alarm at the scale of the industry.
“We’re looking at a powder keg and it’s going to explode again,” said Mecklenburg County Commissioner Mark Jerrell about the impact of corporate landlords on the housing market during an April board meeting. “It’s unacceptable to our constituents and the residents of Mecklenburg to say we can’t do anything about it.”
At that April meeting, commissioners directed county staff to continue examining what other places had tried to address corporate landlords after the initial search returned few solutions.
“Sadly when we scanned the nation, we didn’t really find, especially in larger markets, we didn’t find that these communities are doing anything,” said Monica Allen, the county’s strategic planning director, during that meeting.
Commissioners are scheduled to vote on the proposed $2.1 billion budget for fiscal 2023 in June.
How the money, if approved, would be spent is not spelled out in the proposed budget. Diorio did not respond to an email or to a voicemail left with her assistant on Friday.
There does appear to be a desire among commissioners to help address the impacts of corporate landlords.
“We must be involved in this,” said County Commissioner Pat Cotham in a phone interview on Friday. “We have to be involved in this because it affects our whole community. Housing offers stability and if people are stable, they’re more likely to get a job, their kids are more likely to do well in school.”
“(Diorio) could have doubled the amount in the budget and I would have been fine with it. It’s that important.”
This proposal comes as other levels of government are also taking steps to respond to corporate landlords. On Monday, the White House announced an affordable housing plan that included a measure to slow the industry from buying some foreclosed homes.
U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, a North Carolina Democrat, has said she’s looking to craft legislation to regulate institutional landlords.
Use the map below to search for locations of homes bought by corporate landlords across North Carolina.
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This story was originally published May 23, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Mecklenburg County may spend $500K to address impacts from corporate landlords."
