InvitationHomes is a company I feel isn't mentioned enough.
One of the single largest threats to affordable housing in America comes from competition. I'm not informed enough to speak about the housing situations in other countries. Wages not reflecting housing market trends is a popular topic on this sub and it's one I'd like to expand on with my own experience/thoughts.
InvitationHomes is one of America's largest single-family home leasing providers. Essentially, their business strategy is continual growth by overbidding on single-family homes for sale and renting them for a profit. As you can imagine, this makes buying a home in America extremely difficult, as companies like InvitationHomes often have substantial financial backing.
In fact, one of their most prominent investors was the Blackstone Group. For those that don't know, Blackstone is an alternative investment company that sold its shares in InvitationHomes for 1.7 billion in 2019. Blackstone has since been condemned by the UN Human Rights Council for contributing to the global housing crisis.
As a tenant of InvitationHomes, I'm disgusted, enraged, and helpless. I have a comfortable income with quality benefits, but there's a rat's chance in a cat cafe of me being able to compete with the financial resources of InvitationHomes. So, like choosing to freeze to death or sleep underneath a farting gorilla, I have to rent from them. Because it is all but impossible to afford a home where I live despite the fact it has a relatively low cost of living and property prices aren't as exorbitant as other places.
All honesty, I've got to applaud their strategy. It's effective and comprehensively kills two birds with one stone (growing their inventory and eliminating competition.) None of us may look up to Emperor Palpatine but no one will call him incompetent.
But I choose to hate both the player and the game. A single person desperately going down the wrong path for the sake of survival is one thing. A bloated realty juggernaut hoarding one of the most primitive human needs is another.
And the worst part? Their strategy isn't sustainable. There will be a tipping point where their rent is so high, and wages so low, that no one will be able to afford their services. And this won't be a simple “Oh we'll just downsize, lower our prices, and reach a new equilibrium.” They will have a massive amount of inventory (houses) that require regular maintenance and make no money. The company will simply go under.
I say this is the worst part because it means it will have all been for nothing. This won't be Jeff Bezos exploiting his workers to buy another mansion or some cattle tycoon bulldozing a rainforest to pay off a congressman. This will be a child, getting in the driver's seat of a semi, and ploughing it through a mini mall.
There's no sense to this, no real gain or benefit even from the lowest moral standpoint. It's a dirty bomb of greed and idiocy that will explode into a miasma of homelessness, economic recession, and permanent harm to families.
InvitationHomes is a prominent contributor to the housing crisis in America. Their name should be known to all. If we are going to rent (and many of us will have to for quite a long time) we should know the worst of the predators to avoid. I, unfortunately, don't have any other viable options. It's the farting gorilla for now.
I may be screaming into the void. But I hope that others can learn from my understanding of InvitationHomes so that they may do what they can to avoid this company like the plague on fire.
For more: Link to InvitationTenants, a website with more news and information about single-family housing renters.