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The great recession resulted in the creation of Blackstone's Invitation Homes, which is the largest owner of single-family rental homes in the US. Homes that u

The great recession resulted in the creation of Blackstone's Invitation Homes, which is the largest owner of single-family rental homes in the US. Homes that used to be owned and rented locally by individuals or small businesses are now rented and managed from elsewhere. Profits resulting from higher rents and cheaper maintenance flow to stock holders, creating bad incentives. These homes are no longer rotating into the market for sale, reducing inventory. Even for rental homes rented by local owners, the increased rent due to the commercialization of rented residential housing created conditions for everyone's rent to go up. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/magazine/wall-street-landlords.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/magazine/wall-street-land...

deathtraphomes 5y ago
Ah, I moved into one of invitation homes a few years ago. Looked nice when we drove up, didn’t think about why all the windows were open when we signed paperwork. Their negligence nearly killed my family, and left us with life long injuries. The gas line was leaking natural gas, improper installation? the furnace and stove were emoting lethal levels of carbon monoxide. Detector was defective. A portion of the AC fell into the kids room. One wall got so hot it burned my wife. Only reason we didn’t die is smell was so bad we nearly always had all windows open. At every stage they lied and did what they could to cover up problems. I still recall spending an hour each morning trying to wake kids, not realizing we were all being poisoned. Just last week they tried to settle the matter by paying back my deposit if I agreed to Silence, and gave up all legal claims. https://lease.invitationhomes.com/homes/665-cranberry-ct-30076-8599 https://lease.invitationhomes.com/homes/665-cranberry-ct-300...
- sizzle 5y ago
  This sounds like an issue with that specific home. I’ve never heard of a home with this nanny life threatening issues not be condemned by fire or county authorities.
  - deathtraphomes 5y ago
    House had issues. A simple home inspection would have uncovered a lot. Lots of things out of code. Various workers IH sent admitted they were told to do as little as possible to make it look good.
  - bredren 5y ago
    There are many descriptions of problems with homes managed by IH. Reuters covered a few examples in 2018: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-housing-invitation-special-report-idUSKBN1KH1L4 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-housing-invitation-sp...
    - sizzle 5y ago
      Thanks, they are slumlords is seems
nradov 5y ago
All homes are always on the market for sale, regardless of whether they are listed on the MLS or not. If you see one you like there's nothing stopping you from making an unsolicited offer to Blackstone's Invitation Homes.
- bredren 5y ago
  Invitation Homes raises rents as much as possible. It seems unlikely a typical landlord would need to raise rent at the same rate because they maintain their own operations and have no duty to shareholders. An offer to buy from IH would need to beat IH’s own model for returns in such a substantial way that it would be overpriced and affect comparable home pricing in the area. Thus, it is not similar to making an unsolicited offer to some regular home owner.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Most landlords raise rent as much as possible. Invitation Homes can't charge more than the market rate; their costs are irrelevant.
    - DangitBobby 5y ago
      I hear people say this, but it's definitely not been my personal experience. I've rented at places where the rates were incredibly reasonable and did not increase. One guy let me rent month-to-month for over a year without ever increasing rent. Is there evidence to suggest that private landlords are mustache twirling villains?
      - nixgeek 5y ago
        In my limited experience with renting, self-managed properties often don’t hike rents annually. Feels to me like this is because the landlords aren’t tracking market movements and so don’t understand they can increase their gross revenue by 5-30% in some years because demand significantly outstrips supply in many metros. Managed properties the agent generally does have a lot of datapoints about the market and will raise the rents accordingly,. They can see what similar properties are fetching, they can see the result of hikes in terms of people who move out, and their incentive is the management fee is quite often a % of gross revenue. I’d go as far as saying charging significantly under the market rate for rents is financial mismanagement. You’ve got an asset delivering you income and you aren’t managing the return on the asset to be broadly what equivalent assets are returning to others. I don’t think charging the market rate makes you a mustache twirling villain.

deathtraphomes 5y ago

Ah, I moved into one of invitation homes a few years ago. Looked nice when we drove up, didn’t think about why all the windows were open when we signed paperwork. Their negligence nearly killed my family, and left us with life long injuries. The gas line was leaking natural gas, improper installation? the furnace and stove were emoting lethal levels of carbon monoxide. Detector was defective. A portion of the AC fell into the kids room. One wall got so hot it burned my wife. Only reason we didn’t die is smell was so bad we nearly always had all windows open. At every stage they lied and did what they could to cover up problems. I still recall spending an hour each morning trying to wake kids, not realizing we were all being poisoned. Just last week they tried to settle the matter by paying back my deposit if I agreed to Silence, and gave up all legal claims. https://lease.invitationhomes.com/homes/665-cranberry-ct-30076-8599 https://lease.invitationhomes.com/homes/665-cranberry-ct-300...

sizzle 5y ago
This sounds like an issue with that specific home. I’ve never heard of a home with this nanny life threatening issues not be condemned by fire or county authorities.
- deathtraphomes 5y ago
  House had issues. A simple home inspection would have uncovered a lot. Lots of things out of code. Various workers IH sent admitted they were told to do as little as possible to make it look good.
- bredren 5y ago
  There are many descriptions of problems with homes managed by IH. Reuters covered a few examples in 2018: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-housing-invitation-special-report-idUSKBN1KH1L4 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-housing-invitation-sp...
  - sizzle 5y ago
    Thanks, they are slumlords is seems

nradov 5y ago

All homes are always on the market for sale, regardless of whether they are listed on the MLS or not. If you see one you like there's nothing stopping you from making an unsolicited offer to Blackstone's Invitation Homes.

bredren 5y ago
Invitation Homes raises rents as much as possible. It seems unlikely a typical landlord would need to raise rent at the same rate because they maintain their own operations and have no duty to shareholders. An offer to buy from IH would need to beat IH’s own model for returns in such a substantial way that it would be overpriced and affect comparable home pricing in the area. Thus, it is not similar to making an unsolicited offer to some regular home owner.
- nradov 5y ago
  Most landlords raise rent as much as possible. Invitation Homes can't charge more than the market rate; their costs are irrelevant.
  - DangitBobby 5y ago
    I hear people say this, but it's definitely not been my personal experience. I've rented at places where the rates were incredibly reasonable and did not increase. One guy let me rent month-to-month for over a year without ever increasing rent. Is there evidence to suggest that private landlords are mustache twirling villains?
    - nixgeek 5y ago
      In my limited experience with renting, self-managed properties often don’t hike rents annually. Feels to me like this is because the landlords aren’t tracking market movements and so don’t understand they can increase their gross revenue by 5-30% in some years because demand significantly outstrips supply in many metros. Managed properties the agent generally does have a lot of datapoints about the market and will raise the rents accordingly,. They can see what similar properties are fetching, they can see the result of hikes in terms of people who move out, and their incentive is the management fee is quite often a % of gross revenue. I’d go as far as saying charging significantly under the market rate for rents is financial mismanagement. You’ve got an asset delivering you income and you aren’t managing the return on the asset to be broadly what equivalent assets are returning to others. I don’t think charging the market rate makes you a mustache twirling villain.