Inventory shortages and improved fundamentals mean there are still plenty of opportunities for investors to buy up single-family homes, the global head of real estate at private equity firm Blackstone Group LP tells CNBC.
“In places like California it has gotten more difficult, but as you move east … Atlanta, Chicago, northern Florida — we still see good value,” Jonathan Gray said today on “Squawk on the Street.”
Blackstone — the biggest owner of single-family homes — reportedly paid more than $100 million in April to acquire 1,400 homes in Atlanta from Building and Land Technology.
The latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey showed investors’ share of home purchases dropped from 22 percent in April to 20.2 percent in May. That was the steepest decline in investor activity in more than three years. The survey’s forward-looking indicator, the Investor Traffic Index, predicted that investor activity will continue to decrease in the coming months. Source: cnbc.com.