State and local officials, housing advocates, and community members to discuss the private equity takeover of Phoenix housing

Phoenix, AZ — The American Economic Liberties Project will join Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari (AZ-03) on Thursday, September 10 for a roundtable examining how Wall Street investors have reshaped Phoenix’s housing market, squeezing out renters, aspiring homeowners, and local builders in the process. The event, “Private Equity Housing Takeover: How Institutional Investors Push Phoenix Tenants, Local Builders, and Aspiring Homeowners to the Brink,” will feature Laurel Kilgour, Research Manager at Economic Liberties, alongside State Senator Analise Ortiz, Phoenix City Councilwoman Anna Hernandez, housing advocates, and community members discussing how Phoenix became one of the country’s top markets for investor-owned housing, and what can be done to protect tenants, potential homeowners, and local builders.

Economic Liberties will release a case study on Phoenix’s housing market, “Phoenix Case Study: Single-Family Rentals, Build-to-Rent, and Undoing the Corporate Capture of Housing,” next week that details how decades of policy choices weakened the city’s homebuilders and local banks while enabling large corporations to hoard land and homes. The result has been a Phoenix where it is harder for families to buy and easier for Wall Street to turn housing into a financial asset.

The roundtable will provide an opportunity for experts to share insights on the policy decisions driving changes in the housing market, and for Phoenix community members to share their stories about the impacts of investor-owned housing and the severe lack of attainable homeownership for middle- and working-class Phoenicians. 

Media are welcome to attend.

EVENT DETAILS

What: Private Equity Housing Takeover: How Institutional Investors Push Phoenix Tenants, Local Builders, and Aspiring Homeowners to the Brink — a roundtable discussion

When: Thursday, September 10, 2026, 5:30–7:30 p.m. PT

Where: The McKinley Club, 734 W. Polk Street, Phoenix, AZ 85007

Moderator: Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari (AZ-03)

Featuring:

• Analise Ortiz, Arizona State Senator, District 24
• Anna Hernandez, Phoenix City Councilwoman
• Laurel Kilgour, Research Manager, American Economic Liberties Project
• Terry Benelli, Senior Executive Director, Local Initiatives Support Corporation Phoenix
• Christian Solorio, former Arizona State Representative, Welcoming Neighbors Network
• Nicole Rodriguez, Valley Urban Action Alliance
• Enrique Davis Mazlum, PhD, Arizona State Director, Policy & Advocacy, UnidosUS
• Pamela Bridge, Director of Litigation & Advocacy, Community Legal Services of Arizona
• Additional participants to be announced

RSVP: Eventbrite. Media planning to attend should RSVP at the Eventbrite link. 

BACKGROUND

Phoenix is one of the top metro areas in the country for single-family rental homes owned by large institutional investors, second only to Atlanta. The impacts are severe: tenants face more evictions and higher fees, and those looking to buy are paying more than ever in a market with limited supply. Nationally, homebuilding rates lag 1990s levels by 20%.

Corporate single-family rentals became common after the Great Financial Crisis, when Wall Street firms bought up foreclosed homes in bulk. More recently, investors have piloted “build-to-rent” developments, where entire neighborhoods are reserved for corporate-owned rentals from the outset, even as construction of starter homes has plummeted. Together with stagnant wages and rising costs across the board, these trends are transforming the Phoenix housing market at a time when rents are at all-time highs and homeownership is increasingly out of reach.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.