Why There Are No Houses to Buy in Many U.S. Metro Areas

[RamblingRose]

55. Equity firms.

The Atlanta-Journal Constitution did a great piece on the housing crisis. Definitely worth the read but I think it's behind a paywall. Of course the GA legislature did nothing this session to help solve the problem.

Private equity firms like Blackstone Group (Invitation Homes), Pretium Partners (Progress Residential) and Amherst (Main Street Renewal) convinced public pension funds and other large institutional investors to bankroll their homebuying sprees.

In 2011, no one company owned 1,000 homes in the entire country, a Congressional review found. Today, 11 firms own more than 1,000 in the Atlanta area alone, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found. And five companies own more than 280,000 single-family homes nationwide combined, according to the Congressional review.

In 2019, Blackstone sold its remaining stake in Invitation Homes for $1.7 billion. But the private equity giant, which has $975 billion in assets, hasn’t left single-family rentals behind. In 2020, it invested $395 million in the Canadian firm Tricon Residential, Atlanta’s fourth-largest homeowner. A year later, it bought Home Partners of America, Atlanta’s eighth-largest, for $6 billion.

Few of their homes are affordable for most renters.

https://www.ajc.com/american-dream/why-companies-buying-up-atlanta-houses/