(07-16-2025 07:53 AM)CardinalJim Wrote:  Blackstone is doing exactly what its former subsidiary BlackRock has been doing for years, buying up single family homes to drive up prices. They claim they are doing it as “investments”. Keep in mind these are the same companies pushing social credit scores and DEI policies. They call it ESG but it’s the same Leftist garbage.

Why are Blackstone, BlackRock and other hedge funds buying up single family homes?

Communists have tried for decades to destroy the middle class in the US. The American middle class is what has made it impossible to implement their Communist utopia. Home ownership is an important part of building personal wealth and one of the bedrocks of the American dream.

If you make it harder for young people to own homes, they are more likely to accept the prison that is Communism.

There has been some talk of local and state governments trying to stop or limit hedge funds from buying single family homes but I’m not sure if that’s happened yet or not.

BlackRock doesn’t buy single family homes. They are primarily an ETF provider (iShares). They offer alternative investments in PE through their PE fund BPIF but don’t buy houses.

Blackstone is the one buying houses, and has been.

Also the fact that you are allocating something being done out of pure capitalistic greed (buying all the houses in an area and driving rent up) to communism is hilarious.

(07-16-2025 08:29 AM)miko33 Wrote:  

(07-16-2025 08:22 AM)VA49er Wrote:  Not sure institutional home ownership is as bad as it's made out to be. According to the 2024 dated GAO Report on Institutional Investments in Single-Family Rental Housing, based on a review of 74 studies about institutional investors in single-family rental housing, institutional investors own roughly 2% of the single-family rental housing stock across the U.S. However, they own a greater share of homes in certain markets, particularly in the southeast. So, as with all things real estate, location matters. Overall, investor home ownership is low; however, in larger cities, it can be as high as 21% like in Jacksonville, FL. Take a look at the report for more details.

It's a perception thing though that's the kicker. if Blackstone buys traditional apartment buildings no one cares. However, it's personal when they start buying up single dwelling homes - even duplexes. Logic says owning only 2% is not a big deal although as you point out concentrated in few markets can become a distortion. All that said - single family and duplex homes should be off limits to institutional investment houses and MNCs...even down to mid sized corporations. Common people need to have something they can look forward to.

Someone is about to get stuck holding the bag on multi family. Starting about 2015 everyone and their brother started multi-family syndication groups bringing in qualified investors as limited partners. They all focus on “value added” less than 5 year flips of multifamily properties and they pay decent when they pay. The syndicators are able to pay themselves on an ongoing basis in fees, the limited partner investors typically get paid on the back end when they sell. They spruce the place up, drive occupancy up with “deals” on rent life free months, then raise the rent and sell to exit. That market has softened, and with interest rates up a bunch of the LPs who bought into syndication are going to get screwed.


Trump wants to open up 401ks to Private Equity without qualified investor restrictions, I’m afraid this will be the way for these multifamily syndicators to find a new batch of bag holders as that market taps out.

(07-16-2025 08:10 AM)UofMTigerTim Wrote:  This has been going on for quite a while. They are even buying up trailer parks and jacking the rent up. This is part of the problem with young couples not being able to afford housing. I am all for capitalism, but congress needs to step in a limit the amount of single-family housing one company owns in a certain area.

It started with storage. I first started getting shopped deal sheets to buy Mini storage, get occupancy high, and flip to a big PE. This was pre-2008 financial crisis. Then in 2012ish when unrest rates bottomed out it was complexes. Then 5 yeas ago it was trailer parks. Now it’s farm acreage.

The only ones that are targeted at long term ownership are the farm average syndication. Everything else is targeted to flip to larger PE within 5 years and cash out. Musical chairs where someone is left holding the bag.

(07-16-2025 06:21 PM)513Alex Wrote:  Gen Z and millennials can’t afford to buy a house, and it shows: The number of first-time homebuyers is half the historical norm

Yep, but I'm not buying that it's all due to "institutional investors buying up all the homes." There may be some of that in larger cities, but for the vast majority of the country, I think it's more to as simply lack of inventory and the effects of former WFH policies that created the rise in home prices.

This also drives up the marketability of land that's being converted from agricultural to subdivisions.