How do housing, land and property rights affect the return of displaced populations to their homes after conflicts? We argue that uncertain and/or discriminatory property rights can impede the decision to return home after forced displacement. This effect has larger implications for the transition from conflict to peace because certain social groups are selectively favored for economic recovery and access to political power. This critical institutional factor is often overlooked in studies of return from displacement. Empirically, we assess the effect of secure property rights on the decision to return in post-conflict Iraq using   survey data on the origin and destination of Iraqi internally displaced persons and returnees from 2019 in a spatial matching framework. We show that individuals with more secure property rights are more likely to return home after displacement than individuals lacking written documentation and facing other barriers to access to their housing and land, suggesting that property rights and a stable transition to peace are interlinked.  We complement this observational data with experiments embedded in a 2021 survey conducted in Monsul and Sinjar that explore the importance of property rights in return decisions.