The Brooklyn landlord everyone hates could soon come to your neighborhood. Tenants warn these private equity groups are raising rent and ignoring maintenance issues.

• Private equity firms have bought up hundreds of smaller apartment buildings in trendy New York neighborhoods.
• Tenants, mostly in Brooklyn, are complaining about sharp rent increases and maintenance issues. 
• Institutional investors are a very small, but growing, slice of total home buyers. 

Private equity firms have spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the last few years buying up smaller apartment buildings in gentrifying — or already gentrified — neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens.