Company cites cooling demand and home price growth for the pullback
Blackstone-owned Home Partners of America has announced that it will stop purchasing single-family homes in 38 US cities as it starts to back away from the cooling housing market.
Starting September 01, Home Partners – an operator of single-family retail homes acquired by Blackstone last June for $6 billion – will pause applications and property submissions in 28 metros, including Boise, Idaho, Fresno, Calif., Memphis, Tenn., and other areas. It will continue to halt activity in additional 10 markets on October 01.
“We assessed several factors such as home price appreciation, state and local regulations and market demand to guide our investment plans to best serve consumers,” Home Partners said in a statement. “We hope to resume purchasing homes in these markets in the future.”
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Commenting on the move, Blackstone told Bloomberg that it is pausing in markets representing less than 5% of its recent activity. Still, Blackstone and Home Partners will continue to buy homes in more than 20 of the nation’s highest-growth markets.
Home Partners, which currently operates in more than 80 markets, purchases single-family properties in cash and then leases them to the customer, who has the opportunity to buy the home through a right-to-purchase program.
Under the new policy, customers who have been approved but don’t submit a home by the cut-off date will be withdrawn from the program and have their application fee refunded.
