Anyone seen Blackrock impact on housing and which areas?

[Account Closed]

I read an article that Blackrock is buying all the houses and new housing tracts with taxpayer dollars to the tune of over 30k houses per year. Turning them into SFR. They are buying above market. Anyone else know about this situation or have firsthand knowledge of the impact?

[Mike Hillman]

I haven't heard of Blackrock using taxpayer money for their purchases; however, I am a commercial real estate lender for a top 10 bank.  We have seen a HUGE amount of capital flowing into single family rental projects.  It's not just Blackrock.  Most of the major institutional equity funds, national real estate owners and developers, and finance companies are focused on this space.  The major difference for these players is that they are focused on developing and owning entire communities of single-family homes that are built specifically for rental purposes.  Essentially, they are building horizontal multifamily projects.  There are some companies dedicating capital to purchasing scatter-site portfolios of individual houses, but this strategy seems to be the exception.  Large institutional players have billions of dollars to deploy, and they cannot do so effectively by targeting single homes in random locations in your local area, so I wouldn't worry about them gobbling up existing inventory.  Where you will see an impact is competition for renters.  That said, the institutional focus in on building these projects where land is cheaper and horizontal development makes more sense.  If you are in a moderately developed area, you likely will not see this product.  Happy to discuss further for anyone that is interested.