BLACKSTONE: WATCH WHAT THEY DO, NOT WHAT THEY SAY

Jonathan Grey is a lying scumbag. He is attempting to deceive readers into believing the housing market is experiencing a healthy recovery and his slimy firm’s 80% REDUCTION in purchasing foreclosed homes from their co-conspirators at the Too Big To Trust Wall Street banks is not really sending a message that Blackstone sees the writing on the wall. Their scheme to drive up prices by limiting inventory and then pretending to be long-term landlords has enriched themselves and their Wall Street cronies. It hasn’t helped the average American or first time home buyer, as prices and higher mortgage rates have made it impossible for people to afford to buy. They get to rent from Blackstone, the Wall Street slumlord.

This douchebag is laying a smoke screen so that his firm can start selling before the muppets realize what is happening. Prices have peaked and are headed down again. The only thing propping up prices were these hedge funds buying. Mortgage applications are at two decade lows. Someone should tell Jonathan that his Wall Street cohort lemmings all did the same exact thing. And they have all stopped buying. They will all be heading for the exits at the same time. And there are very few muppets left to buy their decaying rental houses. The brilliant Ivy League MBA’s didn’t think too hard about their exit strategy. The next two years should be quite entertaining.

This lying prick actually has the balls to blather on about how the housing recovery is self sustaining and strong. Does this look like a strong housing recovery?

Wells Fargo, Citicorp and JP Morgan, along with Bank of American account for more than half the mortgages in the country. They are all reporting 75% lower mortgage originations than one year ago. This is what Jonathan considers an improving housing market? This guy is scared shitless. While he is lying to you, he is desperately trying to unload his portfolio of decaying rental homes on flippers and fools. Watch what he is doing, not what he is saying.

 

Blackstone to slow down home purchases even further this year

Blackstone Group will continue to slow down the pace of its property purchases this year as the supply of ultra-cheap real estate thins out, an official at the private-equity firm tells MarketWatch.

In July Blackstone’s Invitation Homes unit, which Bloomberg estimates is the country’s largest single-family rental business, hit its peak purchase pace of about $125 million worth of homes per week. Since then, the weekly pace has dropped to about $30 million to $40 million, and will fall further this year as it likely becomes tougher to find attractive deals.

Bloomberg
Jonathan D. Gray

“It’s not going to get larger. There’s less and less distressed housing,” said Jonathan Gray, Blackstone’s global head of real estate. “We have slowed down [buying] significantly in a number of markets as a result of prices going up and less distressed” inventory.

But it’s worth noting that despite the expected slowdown, Blackstone

/quotes/zigman/459729/delayed/quotes/nls/bxBX is still making residential purchases. Invitation wouldn’t continue to buy homes, and spend an average of $25,000 per property on renovations, if the firm didn’t expect to enjoy real appreciation as demand builds but housing inventory remains relatively low.

“We still see a number of years of pretty good [home-price] growth. There’s definitely room for more appreciation. We think home prices will do better than most people’s expectations,” Gray said.

Blackstone’s buying is currently concentrated in Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Atlanta and Seattle.

According to the most recent monthly report from RealtyTrac, an online foreclosure marketplace, institutional investors made up 5.9% of all U.S. home sales in February, down from 7.2% a year earlier. There’s been concern that with investors scaling back home buying, there won’t be enough purchases by prospective first-time buyers to fill the gap, as young families struggle with a choppy jobs market and high barriers to obtain a mortgage. However, Gray said the housing market’s recovery has legs.

“We are an increasingly smaller and smaller part of the story now that the recovery has plenty of momentum on its own,” he said.

–Ruth Mantell