Wall Street Firm Blackstone Invests $6 Billion In Single-Family Homes

Investment firm Blackstone Group acquired 17,000 single-family rental homes on Tuesday in a deal worth $6 billion.

Blackstone, an asset management firm that focuses on alternative investments, acquired Home Partners of America (HPA) along with its 17,000 home inventory, the firm announced in a statement Tuesday. Blackstone will continue HPA’s business model of offering its tenants rent-to-own lease agreements, which allow the tenant to purchase the rental property after a certain amount of time.

“The fundamental premise of the HPA platform is to provide residents with the opportunity to live in their chosen home with the option to purchase it,” Blackstone’s Real Estate Senior Managing Director Jacob Werner said in the statement. “We intend to build on that goal and expand access to homes across the U.S.”

Blackstone had previously ventured into single-family rentals after the 2008 housing crash, at one point owning tens of thousands of homes before exiting the business, The Wall Street Journal reported. The firm reentered the housing market in 2020 when it invested $300 million in single-family rental firm Tricon Residential.

The firm also announced that it would be working to offer housing to low-income tenants, aiming to “provide a direct and tangible opportunity to help address housing affordability challenges for families across the U.S.” as housing prices continue their rise since last spring. Blackstone will also provide a free financial planning assistance program to all residents.

Blackstone joins several other major Wall Street firms investing in the booming housing market, including J.P. Morgan, Rockpoint Group, and Brookfield Asset Management. Large institutional investors currently account for 2% of the single-family rental market, though that number is climbing, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Private equity firm BlackRock also attracted attention earlier this year for its activities in the single-family housing market, taking advantage of a potential housing bubble, The Wall Street Journal reported.