Blackstone drops home buying 70%...Uh Oh!

[Justin B.]

The whole story about how private equity firms and hedge funds have steamrolled into the residential home market to become this decade’s slumlords is a story covered on this blog before mainstream media even knew it was happening. I first identified the trend in January of last year in one of my most popular posts of 2013: America Meet Your New Slumlord: Wall Street.

With all that in mind, let’s now take a look at the latest article from Bloomberg, which points out that Blackstone’s home purchases have plunged 70% from their peak last year. Perhaps they overestimated the rental cash flow potential of indebted youth living in their parents’ basements?

Now read this fantastic article from real estate analyst Mark Hanson, who points out that homes are much less affordable now that they were at the peak of the most recent housing bubble.

Never fear serfs, now that homes have once again become unaffordable, the banks are bringing back subrpime loans so that Blackstone can sell back to the muppets.

Ah, crony capitalism at its finest.

Blackstone stops buying houses...

[Terry B.]

Mark Ferguson

In my market, Indianapolis, they weren't buying low... They were paying retail prices. This inflated house prices and caused the retail buyers to overpay because they were fighting the hedge funds for pretty much any and all inventory in the market... They created an artificial sellers market as there is/was no way they could continue buying at that pace.

I sold a number of properties (flips) to another hedge fund, AH4R, and they paid at least my asking, sometimes more (only one occasion where they offered less).

IMO, this artificially inflated prices for retail buyers.... And when they stop buying, will cause a correction in the market again.

Also, what happens to the market if/when they decide to dump their properties in mass quantities? I've seen a number of AH4R properties listed for resale.