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Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
One-tenth of US apartments owned by private equity
This story was originally published on Multifamily Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Multifamily Dive newsletter. At a minimum, private equity firms own over 2.2 million apartment units at 8,200 properties across the country, including projects in development but not yet occupied — roughly 10% of the entire U.S. apartment stock, according to an analysis of property data from the Chicago-based Private Equity Stakeholder Project. Out of 121 firms included in the analysis, New York City-based Blackstone is the largest private equity apartment owner, with over 230,000 apartment units owned. The company accounts for over one-tenth of total private equity ownership in the U.S., according to the PESP. According to the report, Charleston, South Carolina-based Greystar is in second place with over 138,000 units. The most recent NMHC Top 50 report lists the company as the No. 1 multifamily owner in the country, with 122,545 units owned in 2025. Greystar declined to comment on the PESP report. In terms of location, more than half, or 55%, of the units owned by private equity are located in five states — Texas, Florida, California, Georgia and North Carolina. Texas has the highest number of units at over 440,000, and one in five apartment units in Georgia and North Carolina are private equity-owned. At the metro level, Dallas has the highest share of private equity-owned apartments at over 192,000 across 591 properties. More than 40% of private equity-owned units — 928,000 — are located in the top 10 metropolitan areas with the largest supply, led by Denver, Atlanta and Houston. In Atlanta; Denver; Austin, Texas; and Charlotte, North Carolina, private equity-owned units make up more than 25% of the total stock. Metro Total units owned by private equity companies 192,431 141,500 102,052 92,711 86,953 83,185 67,534 62,813 58,247 53,452 SOURCE: Private Equity Stakeholder Project The majority of the units owned by private equity — 63% — were acquired in or after 2018, and, out of the total, 43% were acquired in or after 2021, according to the report. Out of Blackstone's unit total, more than half — 58% — were acquired in 2021 or later. The report by PESP, a nonprofit watchdog organization focused on the impact of private equity and private fund activities across all industries, states that many of the locations with a high share of private equity-owned apartments have also seen large increases in renters who report that they are cost-burdened, or spending more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities. The report highlights Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida, as an example. 'The Tampa-St. Petersburg metropolitan area, where private equity companies own almost a quarter of all apartment units, had the largest increase among the 25 largest metropolitan areas in the percentage of renters who are cost-burdened, rising from 52.6 percent in 2019 to 61 percent in 2023,' the report reads. 'Rents increased 49 percent in the Tampa area from 2019 to 2023 — the largest increases in rents among the 25 largest metropolitan areas.' Blackstone, however, attributed these rising rents to a growing mismatch between housing supply and demand. 'We own less than 1% of rental housing in the U.S. and every country across Europe and Asia where we own assets,' the company said in a fact sheet shared with Multifamily Dive. 'Given our ownership levels, we have virtually no ability to impact market rent trends. Rents are going up because there is significantly less supply of housing across the globe than demand for it.' The company also noted that one of its portfolio companies, April Housing, was the No. 1 owner and expected preserver of affordable Low-Income Housing Tax Credit housing in the U.S., and that it had invested $17 billion to construct and improve its properties since 2014.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Private equity snaps up disability services, challenging state regulators
A man attempts to pull his power wheelchair through the snow after it got stuck on his driveway in December 2024 in Watertown, N.Y. In recent years, a handful of large private equity-owned companies such as Sevita have acquired hundreds of smaller providers of disability services around the country and rolled them into larger corporations. (Photo by) Private equity companies have gobbled up group homes and other services for people with disabilities, attracting the attention of state and federal regulators across the nation and alarming advocates. People with intellectual or developmental disabilities have suffered abuse, neglect and even death while under the care of private equity-owned providers, according to a recent report from watchdog group Private Equity Stakeholder Project. 'Private equity firms are, more than many other types of investors, laser-focused on maximizing their cash flow, often trying to double or triple their investment over a relatively short period of time, usually just a handful of years,' said Eileen O'Grady, the report's author. 'The way that private equity firms will often do that is to cut costs.' For companies that provide essential services for people with disabilities, she said, 'those cuts can have really harmful impacts on people's lives.' In late 2023, Florida moved to revoke the license of NeuroRestorative, one branch of the private equity-owned health services company Sevita, which provides services for people with disabilities. State regulators cited repeat violations by NeuroRestorative and a failure to 'protect the rights of its clients to be free from physical abuse.' Ultimately the state opted not to revoke the license and fined the company $13,000 in a settlement. But in recent years regulators have documented instances of patient harm at Sevita's affiliates in multiple other states, including Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts and Utah. In 2019, a U.S. Senate committee conducted a probe into the company's operations in Iowa and Oregon following multiple reports of patient abuse and neglect. 'Shell game': When private equity comes to town, hospitals can see cutbacks, closures 'Any entity that receives taxpayer dollars, but especially those charged with caring for our fellow Americans who may have an intellectual disability, ought to be doing everything under the sun to ensure quality care and continually improve,' U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said in a statement in 2020 following his investigation. In a statement to Stateline, Sevita did not address the sanctions directly, but avowed its commitment to providing services and supports to give people greater independence, regardless of their intellectual or physical challenges. 'Since 2019, when new ownership acquired the company, there has been significant capital investment to improve and expand our services, enhance facilities, implement robust training and new technologies, and strengthen our workforce — all with the goal of better serving our individuals and communities,' the statement said. The disability care industry has proven increasingly attractive to private equity. In recent years, a handful of large private equity-owned companies such as Sevita have snapped up hundreds of smaller providers of disability services — often community nonprofits, mom-and-pop businesses and religious organizations — and rolled them into larger corporations. From 2013 to 2023, private equity firms acquired more than 1,000 disability and elder care providers, according to the report by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project. That's likely an undercount because they're generally not required to disclose acquisitions, the report said. Private equity firms use pooled investments from pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and wealthy individuals to buy a controlling stake in a company. They seek to maximize its value — often by cutting costs — and then sell it at a profit. Most of Sevita's revenue comes from providing disability services. It operates companies in 40 states under various brands, including Mentor Network, NeuroRestorative and REM. Sevita is currently owned by private equity firms Centerbridge Partners and Vistria Group, which also own Help at Home, a home health company with more than 200 locations across about a dozen states. Nearly all of Sevita's revenue comes from Medicaid, according to a February 2025 report from S&P Global. Private equity's growing footprint in home health care draws scrutiny Through Medicaid and Medicare, the government pays for most services for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities. The two programs cover services such as group homes, adult day programs, in-home care, and physical and occupational therapy. 'Sevita has been owned by private equity firms for over a decade now, and has been under investigation and scrutiny at the federal and state level for basically that entire time,' O'Grady said. In 2022, Iowa fined a NeuroRestorative group home $10,500 after a resident was left unattended in a liquor store and drank three-quarters of a bottle of vodka. The same year, Massachusetts temporarily removed Sevita's license to operate group homes after regulators reported inadequate staff training and supervision, and a 'myriad of issues that were uncovered onsite,' according to a Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services report. The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has fined a NeuroRestorative facility in Utah four times since 2022. A February 2024 inspection report by the agency found the facility 'failed to prevent abuse, neglect … and exploitation' of residents. Last year, Florida fined another Sevita brand, Florida Mentor, for improper use of restraints. More issues have been documented in Sevita-owned locations in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, New Hampshire and Nevada. Meanwhile, Sevita's owners, Centerbridge and Vistria, have collected nearly half a billion dollars since 2019 by loading Sevita and Help at Home with debt in order to pay dividends to investors, according to Moody's, a financial services company. Similar financial maneuvering contributed to the recent collapse of Steward Health Care, a private equity-owned hospital system that once had more than 30 hospitals nationwide. Steward has become a cautionary tale about the harm that profit-driven private equity firms can do to a state's health system. 'Before Steward Health Care ultimately collapsed, executives spent years hiding their financial information from state regulators, putting patients and our health care system at risk,' Massachusetts Democratic House Speaker Ron Mariano said in a statement earlier this year announcing a new state law that beefs up reporting and financial requirements for private investors. 'That's why ensuring that our institutions are equipped to monitor the health care landscape, and to guard against trends and transactions that drive up costs without improving patient outcomes, is so important.' After two residents of a New Jersey group home died from choking on food in 2017, attorney Cory Bernstein became interested in private equity's involvement in disability services. The residents had been living in homes operated by AdvoServ, a company then owned by the private equity firm Wellspring Capital Management. The state had cited AdvoServ more times than any other operator in New Jersey for abuse, neglect and unsafe conditions. AdvoServ later ceased operations in 2019 after multiple state agencies, including in New Jersey, Florida and Maryland, launched investigations. States just don't really have the resources or tools to do what needs to be done. – Cory Bernstein, staff attorney at the National Disability Rights Network But even when state regulators are doing all they can to protect people with disabilities from substandard care, they're limited in how much they can hold a company accountable, Bernstein told Stateline. 'It's state-level oversight on a national entity with not much [help] coming from the federal side,' said Bernstein, who is now a staff attorney at the National Disability Rights Network, a membership organization of federally mandated state disability advocacy programs. 'States just don't really have the resources or tools to do what needs to be done.' A regulatory agency in Georgia might shut down all the group homes owned by a certain company, for example, but those regulators can't do anything about the company's abuses in, say, Montana. With branches in multiple states, a company is better able to withstand sanctions or even a loss of license in one state, he said. '[States] are not set up to go up against a national operator with billions of dollars in resources in a regulatory or oversight battle,' Bernstein said. Further complicating things for state regulators and for consumers is that a large services company such as Sevita might operate under multiple brand names, even in one state. It can be hard to parse out who owns a sanctioned business. Multiple brand names can also obscure a company's monopoly on a particular regional market. Vets fret as private equity snaps up clinics, pet care companies When Florida regulators reached a settlement agreement with Sevita's NeuroRestorative last year, the state dismissed its proposed license revocation. O'Grady believes one reason the state chose to settle is the difficulty of finding alternative facilities to relocate the residents who would have been displaced from the 13 locations the company operated around the state. 'Because of that dearth of alternatives and the impotence of the state to act more fully, this company will continue to be allowed to operate,' she said. Further complicating oversight: Large companies often operate various services that are overseen by different agencies. Group homes might be regulated under the state's Medicaid program, while facilities that provide more intensive care might come under federal Medicare oversight. There could be 'two completely different oversight systems for facilities serving the same population in the same state with the same name,' Bernstein said. Some states have moved to address problems with private equity involvement in health care by passing tighter restrictions on mergers and acquisitions of health care companies. In Rhode Island, where private equity companies' mismanagement of health care providers threatened the future of local hospitals, a robust oversight law allowed the state attorney general to impose conditions to protect the hospitals' finances. More states are following suit. In 2023 alone, 24 states enacted laws related to health system consolidation and competition, while this year at least half a dozen have considered legislation to check private equity-fueled health care mergers. Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@ SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Axios
16-04-2025
- Business
- Axios
Private equity firms own about 20% of Richmond-area apartments
Richmond has one of the highest shares in the nation of apartments owned by private equity firms, according to a new report. Why it matters: In communities where investment companies own a significant share of housing, residents tend to see lower housing affordability, higher rent and "aggressive evictions," per the report's author, watchdog nonprofit Private Equity Stakeholder Project. The big picture: Private equity firms have been snapping up housing across the country in recent years, including in Richmond, where they're buying single-family homes, mobile home parks and even nursing homes. Home purchases by investors more than doubled during the pandemic before cooling off in 2023 and then coming back with a vengeance last year, a Redfin report found. The types of properties they buy may vary, but the playbook generally does not. When investment companies take over, residents often see longer wait times for maintenance issues, a proliferation of " junk fees" and rent hikes, the Stakeholder Project found. These firms are also more likely to use controversial rent-pricing software that can further drive up renters' costs. Between the lines: Just over a quarter of Richmond renters spent more than half their income on housing in 2023, according to Census data. That data followed a report by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies that found that at least 52% of Richmond renters spent 30% or more of their income on rent in 2022. By the numbers: There are 18,460 apartment units in metro Richmond owned by private equity firms, or around 20% of all apartments in the area, according to the report. Richmond ranks 10th in the nation of cities where investment companies own a significant share of multifamily buildings. Raleigh ranked the highest with 35%. Zoom in: At least a dozen of the private equity firms PE Stakeholder Project analyzed have holdings in Richmond, per an Axios review, including Blackstone, the largest private equity firm in the world.
Associated Press
09-04-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
New analysis reveals private equity firms own at least 20% of all North Carolina apartments
Among metro areas, Raleigh-Cary has highest concentration of private equity apartment unit ownership at 34.8% RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA, UNITED STATES, April 9, 2025 / / -- A new analysis from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) reveals that at minimum, private equity firms own 8200 apartment buildings and over 2.2 million units in the U.S., representing about 10% of all apartment units in the country. Released in conjunction with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), the North Carolina Tenants Union (NCTU), and the Community Economic Defense Project (CEDP), the Private Equity Multi-Family Housing Tracker presents the most in-depth analysis of the state of private equity buyouts of apartment housing to date. More than half (55%) of the total units currently owned by private equity companies are in just five states – Texas, Florida, California, Georgia, and North Carolina, and almost two-thirds (62%) of the total units currently owned were acquired by private equity companies just since 2018. Among U.S. metro areas, Raleigh - Cary had the highest percentage of private equity ownership of multi-family housing, with one in every three apartment units being owned by private equity landlords. Across the country, tenants of private equity-owned properties have reported problems such as large rent increases, hidden fees, poor maintenance and repairs, lack of responsiveness to tenant concerns, and aggressive eviction practices. Because the private equity business model needs to generate high returns on a short timeline, private equity landlords generally do everything possible to maximize cash flow to themselves while cutting costs, including deferring maintenance, skirting regulations, and saddling tenants with junk fees. 'North Carolinians are facing a dire housing affordability crisis. Private equity's ownership of one in five apartments in North Carolina, and their recent rapid acquisitions, highlight the need for strong tenant protections,' said Nick MacLeod, Executive Director of the North Carolina Tenants Union. 'Right now, predatory private equity landlords can take advantage of North Carolina's lack of tenant protections to dramatically raise rents, charge exorbitant fees and evict tenants without cause. NC tenant law must be strengthened so North Carolinians have control over their own housing and their own lives.' Key findings of the analysis include: - Private equity firms own 8200 apartment buildings and over 2.2 million units, representing about 10% of all apartment units in the country - Blackstone, the largest private equity firm in the world, is also by far the largest owner of apartments in the U.S., owning over 230,000 apartment units. - More than half (55%) of the total units currently owned by private equity companies are in just five states – Texas, Florida, California, Georgia, and North Carolina. - Private equity companies own one in every five (20%) apartment units in Georgia and North Carolina. - The ten metropolitan areas with the largest number of private equity-owned apartment units are Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, Denver, Austin, Phoenix, Orlando, Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, and Tampa-St. Petersburg, which have a total of over 860,000 units, more than a third of the total private equity-owned units in the country. - Private equity-owned apartments account for more than 25% of the overall apartment units in the Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, and Denver metropolitan areas. - Many of the states and metropolitan areas with the largest concentration of private equity-owned apartments are also the areas that have seen some of the largest recent increases in renters who are 'cost burdened' by high rent, paying 30% or more of their income on rent and utilities. - The five metropolitan areas where the cost burden for renters has worsened the most since 2019 – Tampa-St. Petersburg, Phoenix, Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, and Charlotte– are also areas where private equity companies own a large percentage of the apartment units. The Tampa-St. Petersburg metropolitan area, where private equity companies own almost a quarter of all apartment units, had the largest increase among the 25 largest metropolitan areas in the percentage of renters who are cost-burdened, rising from 52.6 percent in 2019 to 61 percent in 2023 'Time and time again, private equity landlords have failed to provide renters across the nation with safe, reliable, and affordable housing,' said Jordan Ash, lead author of the report and director of housing at PESP. 'With over 2 million apartment units in the US owned by private equity, it is more urgent than ever to institute guardrails to protect tenants from private equity's ravenous hunger for profits.' Coupled with a worsening affordable housing crisis, the need for transparency into private equity investments in US housing is more essential than ever. But despite well-documented negative impacts on tenants, Scott Turner, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, has signaled a desire for further private equity acquisitions of housing. 'In Colorado, private equity investors have set the stage for an eviction crisis,' said Marissa Molina, Chief Policy and Communications Officer at the Community Economic Defense Project. Artificially high rents, enforced by the constant threat of removal, keep renters on the brink of homelessness. Private equity's profit-at-any-cost business model harms families and communities.' Sam Garin +1 248-303-7020
