Investment firms are buying a substantial amount of U.S. starter homes — Transcript

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1. 0:00this is a home we bought this is 3518 shiner  drive right in jacksonville this home is 1700
2. 0:06square feet how many bedrooms three bedrooms  two baths was built about three years ago
3. 0:11gary berman is ceo of tricon residential a  toronto-based company that has quietly become
4. 0:18one of the largest owners of single-family homes  in the united states so today we own about thirty
5. 0:25thousand single-family rental homes across the  u.s largely in the sun belt and we've got probably
6. 0:30about 75 000 people living in our homes you are  a multi-billion dollar company you're publicly
7. 0:38traded on the new york stock exchange correct and  the toronto stock exchange toronto stock exchange
8. 0:44i even read in one of your own documents that your  revenue went up last year by 67 percent is that
9. 0:52correct yeah we're expanding i mean when you think  about it we have an incredible amount of demand
10. 1:00for what we do so leslie in any given week we  might have two or three hundred homes available
11. 1:06for renting for renting and we get  about 10 000 leasing inquiries a week
12. 1:14tricon is trying to buy 800 houses a month and  there are companies even bigger invitation homes
13. 1:22owns more than 80 000 rental houses american  homes for rent close to sixty thousand
14. 1:29some of the all-stars of finance goldman sachs jp  morgan blackstone have put hundreds of millions
15. 1:36of dollars into these companies they all offer  rental homes online and all focus on the sun
16. 1:43belt our largest portfolio would be in atlanta  in charlotte in phoenix in tampa and those are
17. 1:50the cities that young millennials are flocking to  this is where americans want to be we're finding
18. 1:56that americans are moving from the northeast  from the midwest to move to the sun belt because
19. 2:03taxes are lower it's a friendlier business  environment it's better weather and so there's
20. 2:08a movement taking place and the pandemic unleashed  powerful nesting trends and work from home trends
21. 2:15nesting trends powerful nesting terms when  we survey our residents why did they move
22. 2:19uh to be with us the number one reason is they  want more space big investment companies like
23. 2:25yours are being blamed for this huge increase in  rents across the country and you can set the rent
24. 2:33any way you want really given the demand you're  talking about first i mean corporate landlords
25. 2:40represent two percent of all single-family  rental housing so there's a lot more going on
26. 2:48than just corporate landlords bidding up homes  it's a very competitive and difficult environment
27. 2:54it's true that big investors don't own  nearly as many houses as mom and pop
28. 2:59landlords people who might have just a  few properties but big firms like tricon
29. 3:05do play a larger and growing role in  the sunbelt cities where they're active