America’s Landlords Are Aging. Will Their Heirs Take On the Job?

America’s landlords are getting older, setting up a generational handoff that could reshape how millions of rentals are owned and operated.About 11.2 million U.S. rental properties are owned by individual investors. Among them, roughly 6.9 million—62%—are managed by the owner or an unpaid family member, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.And many of the people behind those family-run rentals are reaching retirement age and beyond. Nearly 40% of U.S. households receiving rental income are headed by someone 65 or older, compared with 30.6% of households overall.“The sandwich generation doesn’t want to be the one who gets the call when a toilet breaks at 3 a.m.,” says Scott Stollar, a San Diego real estate agent and certified probate and trust specialist who says he has consulted about 30 families on inherited or handed-down homes over the past two years.That puts rental property squarely in the Great Wealth Transfer, as $124 trillion is projected to pass from baby boomers and older generations through 2048.But the transfer is arriving across a stark generational divide in housing. Younger adults are nearly three times as likely to rent, and they are more supportive of limits on lan...