Private equity firms now own nearly 40% of Triangle apartments. Why it matters.

Private equity firms now own more than 46,700 apartments — or about 39.5% of total units — in the Raleigh-Cary metro area, according to new data from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP), a nonprofit financial watchdog.

That’s among the highest concentrations in the country — a level of institutional control that’s reshaping what it means to rent here. It also coincides with the region’s biggest landlords facing accusations of colluding to push rents higher. Two major settlements have already followed.

As the Triangle booms, its rental market is increasingly being steered not by local owners but by “Wall Street” landlords, PESP spokesperson Sam Garin, told The News & Observer in an email. The effects are showing up, she said, in “rising costs and shrinking affordability.”

“We need policymakers to take action to rein in the worst abuses,” Garin said.

The “Raleigh-Cary” metro analyzed also includes Apex, Wendell and Wake Forest.

Private equity firms own 70 apartment complexes in the Durham–Chapel Hill metro, totaling more than 18,200 units. However, the total number of all apartment units was not available, PESP said.

The project previously released separate reports tracking the impact of private-equity firms on the single-family rental market and manufactured homes.

Nationwide, 121 firms own at least 11,800 apartment complexes with almost 3 million units, representing about 13% of the total number of apartment units in the United States, the report said.

About half of those units were acquired just since 2021, illustrating the industry’s “rapid incursion” into apartment ownership.

More than two-thirds (70%) of the total units currently owned by private equity companies are in just 10 states: Texas, Florida, California, Georgia, North Carolina, Colorado, New York, Arizona, Virginia and Washington state.

Texas has the most private equity-owned apartments in the country, with over 1,900 properties and almost 580,000 total units.

Across the country, tenants of private equity-owned properties have reported problems such as large rent increases, hidden fees, poor maintenance and repairs, lack of responsiveness to tenant concerns, and aggressive eviction practices.

Big holdings, big controversy

New York-based Blackstone, one of the largest private equity firms in the world with over $1 trillion in assets, holds the largest stake “by far” in the U.S., the report said. But it also lists other big names like Charleston-based Greystar and Atlanta-based Cortland.

All three companies have significant holdings in the Triangle. Examples include Greystar’s Morgan Reserve Apartments and Notting Hill in Chapel Hill, Cortland at RTP and Cortland Olde Raleigh, and Blackstone’s Adara Alexander Place in Raleigh.

Private equity firms also have been accused of collusion and illegally setting rents.

In January 2025, N.C. Attorney General Jeff Jackson sued Blackstone’s LivCor, Cortland, Greystar and three other landlords, accusing them of illegally working together with the software company RealPage. Using RealPage’s algorithm, regulators say, the companies “sidestepped” market competition and were able to set rents artificially high for approximately a third of all one- and two-bedroom apartments in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Charlotte.

To date, Jackson has settled with Atlanta-based Cortland and secured a $7 million settlement with Greystar, the state’s largest landlord, forcing the company to stop using RealPage’s AI driven rent setting software.

Jackson’s case against the other four landlords and RealPage continues.