Private Equity Stakeholder Project Testimony for the Hearing of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs: How Private Equity Landlords are Changing the Housing Market
October 21, 2021
From our testimony for the Senate Banking Committee hearing on “How Private Equity Landlords are Changing the Housing Market”:
WHY ARE MASSIVE INVESTORS BUYING INTO MANUFACTURED HOMES NOW?
Over the past 20 years, manufactured home communities increasingly have gone from “mom and pop” enterprises to ownership by private equity firms and large, multi-state corporations that seek to capitalize on manufactured-home owners’ unique situation.
In 2017, private equity firm Apollo Global Management, with $270 billion in overall assets, bought Inspire Communities, a manufactured home community operator with 13,000 home sites.[1]
In mid 2018, Blackstone Group, one of the largest private equity and real estate firms in the world with $457 billion in assets, bought a portfolio of manufactured home communities in Arizona and California.[2]
In 2020, the Carlyle Group expanded its presence in manufactured home communities with a $230 million purchase of four manufactured home communities in Arizona. [3]
The purchase of manufactured home portfolios rose significantly in 2020. In the one-year period between July 2020 and June 2021, investors purchased $2.6 billion worth of mobile homes communities through portfolio acquisitions.[4]
The outsized growth of private equity and institutional investment during this time period raises particular concern given the economic turmoil created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Research by the Urban Institute found that residents in manufactured home communities were more likely to be employed in the industries most affected by the pandemic.[5] Loopholes and gaps in pandemic relief legislation also have made residents of manufactured homes easier to evict.[6]
Read our full testimony here.
[1] Mergr. n.d. “Apollo Global Management Acquires Inspire Communities.” Accessed October, 2021. https://mergr.com/apollo-global-management-acquires-inspire-communities.
[2] Wilcox, Don. 2020. “Blackstone makes $395M equity investment in Tricon.” Real Estate News Exchange, August 27, 2020. https://renx.ca/blackstone-395m-equity-investment-tricon-residential/#:~:text=In%202018%2C%20Blackstone%20made%20its%20first%20foray%20into,chairman%20and%20CEO%20of%20BREIT%2C%20in%20the%20release.
[3] Burks, Steve. 2020. “Carlyle Group acquires 4 Mesa mobile home parks for $230M.” AZ Big Media, June 15, 2020. https://azbigmedia.com/real-estate/carlyle-group-acquires-4-mesa-mobile-home-parks-for-230m/.
[4] Crimmins, Haley. 2021. “Spotlight on Manufactured Housing Acquisitions, Pricing.” Real Capital Analytics. https://www.rcanalytics.com/spotlight-manufactured-housing-2021/.
[5] Choi, Jung Hyun, and Laurie Goodman. 2020. “22 Million Renters and Owners of Manufactured Homes Are Mostly Left Out of Pandemic Assistance.” The Urban Institute. https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/22-million-renters-and-owners-manufactured-homes-are-mostly-left-out-pandemic-assistance.
[6] Miranda, Leticia. 2021. “Mobile home dwellers hit even harder when facing eviction.” NBC News, February 14, 2021. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/mobile-home-dwellers-hit-even-harder-when-facing-eviction-n1257497.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 2021. “Manufactured Housing Finance: New Insights from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Data.” pg. 9. https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_manufactured-housing-finance-new-insights-hmda_report_2021-05.pdf.
