Private Equity verstärkt sein Engagement im britischen Mietsektor

Leveraging homelessness:

*[…] The share of new rental investment in the UK going into single-family homes rather than multi-family blocks reached 54 per cent in the year to September, up from 32 per cent in the year before and just 5 per cent in 2019, Savills said.*

*Investors snapped up nearly 5,000 homes in the first three quarters of the year, up 20 per cent from the same period last year, according to Savills.*

*UK institutions including Aviva, L&G and Lloyds have been joined by a growing number of international firms. Blackstone, the world’s largest real estate investor, has bought about 4,500 rental homes from Vistry since late 2023, in two deals worth £1.4bn.*

*Blackstone, which has long invested in housing in the US, has swept up tens of thousands of homes in Europe, and in the UK has focused on funding new-builds. The group’s UK residential businesses have a portfolio of 17,000 affordable homes — and is now expanding open-market rentals too.*

*Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) launched a joint venture with real estate manager Kennedy Wilson in October worth £1bn to invest in single-family homes, with an initial £500mn investment.*

*[…] Critics see the influx of private capital into rental property in various countries as an indictment of the housing crisis that has locked many families out of home ownership, and left them to rent for longer at the mercy of large rent increases.*

*Institutional investment in rental homes in the UK remains at a low level compared with other countries, with just 3 per cent of rental homes owned by big investors — compared with 37 per cent in Germany and 41 per cent in the US.*

Seriously fuck private equity firms, there’s so many that’re just outright scumbags.

And this is why simply building more houses won’t solve everything

Now this is the real reason why rents and house prices will continue to go up. Forget tinkering around the edges with supply and demand, quite simply there’s too much money invested in the market, and no politician will challenge it.

The article states that private investors are getting 15-20% discounts on unsold developers’ stock. It begs the question of why developers are pricing out normal buyers if they are happy to sell what is left at a heavily reduced rate to private equity firms. Everything in this article looks bad for the public.

If private equity gets to set rent prices, then there is no natural end to rent rises due to a lack of competition. Our disposable income will continue to fall, leaving us priced out of buying our own homes and unable to spur economic growth.

The article also mentions that demand for houses has remained low since the mini budget. This is likely down to high interest rates, leaving many priced out of buying. I don’t know that we will see the base rate fall very quickly. Mortgage rates have started to fall but are a long way from pre covid levels.

There is not a clear route to improvement for the public in the UK, particularly given that private equity and other firms will quote this as being essential for profit growth. Never mind, the family of four desperately tried to buy a home. The government can not do much to sort this problem. I believe we are in the hands of corporate decision makers.

I fear corporate landlords are going to be a very dystopian future for us, and it’s already happening. Things will only ramp up even more over the coming years.

If you ever want an idea of what that future could look like for us, go and have a read about South Korea and how much power Samsung has over the country ! It’s actually mental….

You can go to work at your Samsung office job, travel home on your Samsung public transport, to your Samsung owned property, AND if you need it, you can use the local Samsung hospital…. just make sure you’re home in time for the kids coming home from their Samsung owned University, and if you die your funeral can be handled by the Samsung owned funeral parlor.

That sounds fucking awful to me, and it proves how far things can go when corporations are left unchecked.