BlackRock Doesn't Own 80M Single-Family Homes In The U.S.

The investment firm BlackRock does not own the majority of the country’s 85 million single-family homes in the US, a check by the Associated Press (AP) showed, contrary to the claim on social media that the company has been on a buying spree of houses.

Photo Insert: BlackRock spokesman Christopher Beattie told AP that the firm primarily invests in retail, office buildings, hotels, and apartment complexes, rather than single-family homes.

As Elon Musk’s bid to purchase Twitter has grabbed headlines in recent days, some prominent voices have taken to social media to claim that some other significant acquisitions by deep-pocketed individuals and corporations have largely flown under the radar, Philip Marcelo reported for AP on May 6, 2022.

"BlackRock is not the owner of the majority of single-family houses in the country. There are more than 85 million single-family homes in the country, and only around 15 million of those are rentals, according to the latest American Housing Survey by the Census Bureau," Marcelo added.

Of those rentals, less than a third are owned by non-individual investors, according to a 2022 report by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

In emails, BlackRock spokesman Christopher Beattie told AP that the firm primarily invests in retail, office buildings, hotels, and apartment complexes, rather than single-family homes, but he declined to provide a breakdown.

The company also posted on Twitter to reject the false narrative. “We’ve never been one of the big institutional buyers of single-family homes,” BlackRock said in response to one tweet. The firm is a shareholder in Dallas-based Invitation Homes, which owns nearly 80,000 single-family rentals nationwide.

That makes Invitation Homes the largest operator of single-family rental homes in the country, but still represents a tiny fraction of all such homes.

BlackRock also suggested it was being confused for the similarly-named investment management firm Blackstone, which until recently owned Invitation Homes. Adding to the confusion, Blackstone was once a major investor in BlackRock but sold off its stake in the 1990s.

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