Recently, news reports revealed that Equity Residential and AvalonBay Communities, two of the largest corporate landlords in the United States, have started talks about a merger. What journalists didn’t bring up is that Equity and AvalonBay have a long history of spending millions in political money to kill tenant protections so they can continue their predatory business practices and charge unfair, sky-high rents. So if a merger goes through, will Americans face a mega-predatory landlord?
According to the National Multifamily Housing Council’s Top 50 apartment owners, Equity Residential and AvalonBay Communities rank sixth and fourth, respectively. AvalonBay, led by CEO Benjamin Schall, owns 87,501 units, and Equity, helmed by CEO Mark Parrell, owns 85,190 apartments. Together, the corporate landlords operate 172,691 units in the U.S.
Greystar is currently the top owner of apartments with 119,160. If a Equity Residential-AvalonBay Communities merger went through, the mega-company would easily become the largest corporate landlord in the country.
Which is disturbing.
For years now, Equity and AvalonBay have delivered major cash to the California Apartment Association’s political action committees. The California Apartment Association, a powerful lobbying group that does the dirty work for corporate landlords, then sends that money in the form of campaign contributions to state, county, and city politicians in California. A Housing Is A Human Right investigation found that the CAA gave to state and local politicians in 51 out of the state’s 58 counties.
Equity and AvalonBay, in other words, pull a kind of shell game, using the California Apartment Association as a middle man to buy political influence and favors. The CAA also uses corporate landlord money to finance its statewide work to oppose, and ultimately kill, any pro-tenant bill or ordinance that pops up anywhere in California.
In addition, Equity and AvalonBay were leading contributors to campaigns, sponsored by the California Apartment Association, that killed Proposition 10 in 2018, Proposition 21 in 2020, and Proposition 33 in 2024. The California ballot measures, backed by a broad coalition of housing justice groups, social justice organizations, and labor unions, sought to repeal or reform statewide rent control restrictions. AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the parent organization of Housing Is A Human Right, sponsored those initiatives.
On top of that, Equity Residential has been deeply entangled in the RealPage scandal, in which a cartel of corporate landlords used a RealPage software program to allegedly collude and then wildly inflate rents in cities across the U.S. It was a massive controversy that resulted in numerous investigations and antitrust lawsuits, including one by the Department of Justice and several state attorneys general.
Last month, it was revealed that Equity Residential has agreed to a whopping $56-million settlement in federal court in Tennessee for its role in the RealPage scandal.
AvalonBay Communities is also a player in the RealPage controversy: In 2023, Washington D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued RealPage, AvalonBay, and other corporate landlords “for colluding to illegally raise rents for tens of thousands of DC residents.” That case is ongoing.
If the Equity-AvalonBay merger goes through, the mega-landlord would operate in numerous states across the nation, including California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. As one can guess, a proposed merger, which would seriously impact the rental housing market, would draw the attention of federal policymakers and regulators.
It should also alarm state politicians, housing activists, and tenants in California, Colorado, and elsewhere: a combined Equity Residential and AvalonBay Communities will have extraordinary financial resources and political connections to kill tenant protections throughout the country, allowing the mega-predatory landlord to charge skyrocketing rents year after year.
Patrick Range McDonald is an award-winning investigative reporter and advocacy journalist for Housing Is A Human Right.