Private equity giant Blackstone Group has grown its residential real estate portfolio to $3 billion, in a bet on the housing recovery, chairman and CEO Stephen Schwarzman told CNBC. The recent portfolio growth has made Blackstone the largest owner of individual houses in the U.S.
Schwarzman said that while his company is buying up swaths of houses, banking on the nascent recovery, he isn’t looking to flip them for a quick buck. Rather, Blackstone is targeting distressed properties, making repairs and renting them out.
“It’s a good business for us. It’s a new thing, but it’s also good for America,” Schwarzman said.
Indeed, single-family rental homes make up 52 percent of the housing stock in the U.S., according to a study cited by real estate columnist Kenneth Harney , and such residences grew at a rate five times faster than other housing types between 2005 and 2010, U.S. Census data show.
Closer to New York, real estate investment firm DelShah Capital [https://therealdeal.com/new-york/2013/02/21/delshah-capital-jumps-into-smaller-residential-homes/] recently purchased a package of 21 single-family rental homes in Brooklyn, as The Real Deal reported.
[CNBC] —Christopher Cameron