The Blackstone Group plans to go public with the largest single-family rental company in the country.
Blackstone [TRData] bought Invitation Homes, which oversees about 50,000 houses across the country, in the wake of the housing bust. But while others in the industry went public with less-than-stellar returns, Blackstone sat by and watched.
The company is now planning to take Invitation Homes public as a real estate investment trust, though the exact size and time of the offering was not immediately clear, according to Bloomberg.
Shares of home-rental companies have been surging as apartment owners take a hit. American Homes 4 Rent, the second-largest single-family landlord behind Invitation Homes with about 48,000 properties, has surged in value by 26 percent this year.
Colony Starwood Homes, the third-biggest with 31,100 homes, climbed 44 percent while Silver Bay Realty Trust Corp., the first such company to go public, gained 12 percent.
This is happening as apartment-focused companies like Equity Residential are take hits, largely due to an increase in rental inventory pushing down revenues in New York and San Francisco.
“REIT investor interest in the single-family rental sector has grown recently, thanks largely to improved operating results, particularly as apartment fundamentals weaken,” Green Street Advisors managing director Dave Bragg wrote in a note to investors last month.
Blackstone’s Jonathan Gray said in April 2014 that he planned to take Invitation Homes public within two years. [Bloomberg] – Rich Bockmann