Hundreds of millions of tenants live in Third World cities; in many cities they constitute the majority of households. Despite their numerical importance, we remain ignorant of this large mass of people and the conditions in which they live. We are even more ignorant about those who provide rental accommodation, even if we have inherited strong prejudices about the characteristics of the typical landlord. This book attempts to summarize what we know about rental housing in Latin America, and compares this with other areas in the developing world.