KALAMAZOO, MI -- City residents only own four out of every 10 rental units in Kalamazoo.

More than one quarter of all rental units -- defined as an independent living facility with permanent provisions for living, sleeping, eating, cooking and sanitation -- are owned by people or entities outside of Michigan. Thirty percent are owned by state residents who don't live in Kalamazoo.

There are 3,809 rental properties registered with the city of Kalamazoo, totaling 17,163 rental units. This includes single-family homes, duplexes, multi-unit rentals, bed and breakfasts and large apartment complexes. Census data indicates rentals make up 53 percents of the city's housing units, according to the city manager's office.

Some of the biggest apartment complexes in Kalamazoo are owned by non-residents. Property owners tend to be in large metro areas surrounding cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Dallas, Denver, Philadelphia, New York, and along coastal Florida and California.

The city's largest rental property owner, MIMG LXVI Drakes Pond, LLC., is registered to a Colorado address. The company manages 497 units at the Drake's Pond Apartment complex in the Arcadia neighborhood.

Dover Hills Apartments, which has 378 units, is owned by a company of the same name based in Bingham Falls, a small village in Oakland County.

Ironically, Kalamazoo Properties I, LLC., which owns the 374-unit Campus Court at Knollwood, is an Armonk, N.Y. company.

Individuals and entities based in the state of New York own 1,038 units -- the most of any state outside Michigan with owners of Kalamazoo rental property. Indiana, Colorado, Illinois and Florida-based development companies bought up the most property among non-Michigan owners.

Though smaller residential homes are predominantly owned by locals, non-Michigan residents control a number of single-family and multi-unit houses.

More than a dozen California entities, including separate limited liability companies named Prytaneum Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma and Epislon, LLC., own houses in Kalamazoo's Vine neighborhood.

The Vine neighborhood has one of the highest concentrations of rental properties in the city. Almost a quarter are owned by people who live outside of the state.

Joe Lukeman, owner of Lukeman Property Management, said Kalamazoo has a reputation nationally as a "very good" place to invest. This is partially due to a high demand for cheap rental properties for students at local colleges.

Lukeman manages properties for investors who own around 110 residences, mostly in the Vine neighborhood around Western Michigan University and downtown Kalamazoo. In those areas, he said the demand for housing is fierce, especially closer to downtown.

Property management companies allow owners to hand off the headache of being a landlord, for a percentage of the gross rent. It can be a problem-filled business, he said, and often land owners who rent out property are only looking for the financial benefit.

"Housing values and investment opportunities in other parts of the country are so out of whack," Lukeman said. "People found affordability in Kalamazoo."

The Vine, Edison and Northside neighborhoods have the largest numbers of rental units owned by non-Kalamazoo residents. These neighborhoods have some of the lower home values in the city.

Austin Perry, a property manager with AIM Corporation, said most of the clients his company deals with are from out of state. This includes places like Los Angeles, San Diego and other West Coast cities, as well as Phoenix and places in Texas, Virginia and Maryland.

"I would say that most of our clients are from out of town," Perry said. "We do not have many property owners that are local, instead we have a lot of people from across the country who are doing this specifically as an investment."

People from across the country have bought up parcels in Kalamazoo, including a resident of Kaneohe, Hawaii, another in Anchorage, Alaska and two in Canada.

Use our searchable database to find out what neighborhoods rental owners have invested in. Type in an address or select a Kalamazoo neighborhood to see who owns each rental property.

Kalamazoo rental properties by parcel location

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