Who owns the apartments, houses, etc in NYC?

Columbia and NYU are huge property holders, many of them either mixed-rentals or full rentals. The Church has a big chunk of the land. A lot of the other property is owned by larger LLCs, LPs, etc. (I haven’t seen any real corporations).

There are also a lot of co-op properties, where residents have ownership in a percentage of the building as a whole as opposed to the actual apartment they live in (which means having to get permission for a lot of the stuff you want to do to your unit).

In Eugene there a only a few people that own the majority of the rentals. I have a friend that owns over 50 (all paid for) houses on campus. And that is a town of 200k. And he keeps buying more with cash. Eventually a few people will own most of the land in Eugene. I guess it is probably similar in NYC. A small group of really rich people that gobble up land and rent it to you.

I don’t know NY, but I work with property records in Chicago, and in the neighborhoods analogous to The Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn, the owners are usually individuals or small companies.

Lots of people own a 2-flat or 3-flat. They may live in one unit and rent out the others. Maybe they get more prosperous and get their own place and hold onto the rental building for income.

My landlords are a couple, they own a handful of buildings with twelve to 20 units.

There are bigger companies, for example here is one with 15 residential buildings and 17 small commercial buildings. Or this one with “42 properties, both beautifully restored vintage courtyard buildings and high-rise apartment buildings.”