Blackstone Group Inc. is exiting its post-recession bet on single-family rental homes, selling off an investment in Invitation Homes Inc., according to the Wall Street Journal.
The sale of Blackstone’s remaining stake in the single-family landlord is for $30.10 per share, according to a statement, and will bring in roughly $1.7 billion. The firm controlled more than 40% of Invitation Homes before it starting selling shares in March. It made about $7 billion from the stock sales and dividends, more than twice what it invested.
Blackstone created the Invitations Homes unit in 2012 in response to the housing crisis in order to capitalize on the growing demand for rental properties coming largely from people who lost homes to foreclosure in the crisis and were unable to obtain mortgage credit to buy another home. Through Invitation Homes, Blackstone became one of the biggest landlords in the U.S.
When Invitation Homes officially went public in 2017, it oversaw approximately 50,000 housing units, the largest pool of rental homes across 14 of the nation’s metropolitan markets.