Wall Street-backed hedge funds, corporate landlords and cash-rich investors have been buying up single-family homes across the country as far back as 2009, which experts say means fewer houses on the market for families to purchase. That also could lead to higher rental prices and fewer affordable homes in regions such as the Las Vegas Valley. A MetLife Investment Management study shows these companies could own close to 40 percent of all U.S. houses by 2030.
Rutgers University researcher Eric Seymour, who compiled data with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, said Invitation Homes owns about 3,500 homes in Clark County, a number that has jumped since 2019 when they owned fewer than 3,100 homes. That makes it the second-largest owner of single-family rental homes in Clark County.
Progress Residential — the largest corporate landlord in Clark County — owns more than 3,700 homes, more than double their portfolio in 2019.
Seymour said Starwood recently purchased some properties from Scottsdale, Arizona-based Progress Residential, which builds and owns more than 85,000 single-family rental homes across 30 metros. He added this is par for the course in today’s real estate market, as massive multibillion-dollar companies are swapping housing stock like stocks.
“Large single-family landlords like Invitation and Progress first acquired inventory following the foreclosure crisis, when they bought homes at discounted prices,” he said. “They’ve since grown primarily through acquisitions of competitor firms. As these companies settled in as landlords, they’ve also made bulk deals with competitor firms to grow or shed their presence in particular markets. They are essentially trading with each other to enhance the performance of their overall inventory.”
Review Journal, January 5, 2024
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Las Vegas Review-Journal, December 5, 2019, Investigative process