Wall Street Private Equity Landlords Snapping Up Apartment Buildings

The report details how private equity firms have aggressively expanded their ownership of U.S. apartment buildings, often employing 'value-added' or 'opportunistic' strategies to maximize returns. These strategies can involve pushing out lower-income tenants through rent hikes and neglect to convert properties into high-rent assets. The document identifies major players like Blackstone, Starwood Capital, and Brookfield Asset Management, noting their shift toward large-scale portfolio acquisitions and the use of high debt levels to finance growth.

• Private equity and private real estate managers own at least one million apartment units in the United States, which is more than double the 500,000 units owned by publicly-traded apartment real estate investment trusts (REITs).
• Some private equity firms use a business model that targets lower-income tenants for removal to increase property value, utilizing methods such as rent increases, harassment, spurious eviction notices, and intentional lack of maintenance to facilitate the conversion of buildings into high-rent properties in gentrifying areas.
• Investment managers such as Blackstone, Starwood, and Lone Star often employ 'value-added' or 'opportunistic' strategies, which may involve high debt levels (up to 80 or 90 percent) and aggressive rent and fee increases to achieve high internal rates of return, such as the 25 percent target promised by Lone Star Funds for its acquisition of Home Properties.
• Blackstone Group is identified as the largest investor in U.S. housing, with a portfolio including over 73,000 apartments, 82,000 single-family homes, and mortgages, as well as manufactured home communities and the mortgage lender Finance of America.
• Starwood Capital has expanded its apartment holdings by purchasing large portfolios from REITs, including 23,262 units from Equity Residential, and acquiring publicly-traded REITs such as Milestone Apartments (24,061 units) and Landmark Apartment Trust (24,000 units).

APA

Private Equity Stakeholder Project (2019). Wall Street Private Equity Landlords Snapping Up Apartment Buildings. http://pestakeholder.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Private-Equity-Apartments-PESP-AFR-NYCC-April-2019.pdf

Chicago

Private Equity Stakeholder Project. Wall Street Private Equity Landlords Snapping Up Apartment Buildings. 2019. http://pestakeholder.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Private-Equity-Apartments-PESP-AFR-NYCC-April-2019.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Private Equity Stakeholder Project |title=Wall Street Private Equity Landlords Snapping Up Apartment Buildings |date=April 2019 |url=http://pestakeholder.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Private-Equity-Apartments-PESP-AFR-NYCC-April-2019.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{privateequitystakeholderproject2019wall, author = {{Private Equity Stakeholder Project}}, title = {{Wall Street Private Equity Landlords Snapping Up Apartment Buildings}}, institution = {Private Equity Stakeholder Project}, year = {2019}, month = apr, url = {http://pestakeholder.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Private-Equity-Apartments-PESP-AFR-NYCC-April-2019.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }