For the average Atlanta resident, the identity of the person who owns the house next door might seem like a trivial matter. But according to new research from Georgia State University, that hidden detail fundamentally shapes the balance of power and wealth across the city.

“Whoever owns the city is able to shape it or control it,” said Taylor Shelton, an associate professor in the Department of Geosciences. “When so much property within certain neighborhoods is owned by people or corporations who don’t live there, that control is ceded to people who don’t have the same level of care or investment in what happens to the place.”

The findings are detailed in a new study published in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Ryan Pardue, a doctoral student in the Urban Studies Institute at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, coauthored the study with Shelton.

Shelton’s previous research found that just three corporate landlords control nearly 11 percent of single-family rental homes across metro Atlanta’s five core counties — Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett.

Sifting through more than 250,000 property records from the City of Atlanta, Shelton and Pardue identified 43,495 absentee-owned residential properties within the Atlanta city limits alone. The data revealed a city divided — not just by race and income, but also by the geography of who owns property and who benefits from it.

In wealthy, predominantly white neighborhoods like Midtown and Buckhead, absentee owners are typically located outside the Atlanta region or the state of Georgia. In historically Black, lower-income Westside neighborhoods, the absentee owners are largely local, including many based in Buckhead itself.

"This points to a clear difference in where people outside Atlanta see value in property ownership, like renting to young professionals in Midtown, versus where people in the wealthiest parts of Atlanta see value in owning rental property in historically Black neighborhoods," Pardue said.

The numbers bear that out. Shelton and Pardue estimate that 2,347 properties in lower-income Atlanta neighborhoods are owned by people or entities based in Buckhead — more properties than are owned by people or entities based in Midtown and Downtown combined.

Identifying those ownership patterns required cutting through deliberate layers of corporate obscurity. For example, Invitation Homes, one of the country’s largest single-family rental companies, owned properties in Atlanta under 19 different corporate aliases.

Local mom-and-pop landlords also routinely hold properties under limited liability companies and limited partnerships to shield their personal finances, Pardue noted.

“This makes it really hard for any renter to know who actually owns the building they live in, which is especially true when landlords use third-party management companies,” he said.

The study arrives at a critical moment for policymakers. House Bill 399, signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp, requires out-of-state owners of 25 or more single-family rental properties to maintain in-state staff for tenant maintenance issues. But the law leaves absentee owners of multifamily apartment complexes entirely untouched.

Shelton argues that absentee ownership deserves attention as a problem in its own right, not as a side effect of eviction or foreclosure, because ownership is at the core of the way society, economy and politics work.

“The ultimate goal isn’t just to have the wealthy and powerful recognize and apologize for the fact that their gains come at someone else’s expense,” he said. “But to strive toward a situation where these forms of extraction no longer exist and that residents are able to exercise agency over their neighborhoods.”