Major Rental-Home Companies Set to Merge as U.S. House Prices Recover<br />Since the financial crisis, institutional investors like hedge funds<br />and investment firms, as well as private equity firms, have bought an estimated 200,000 single-family homes to operate as rentals.<br />Invitation Homes is majority owned by the Blackstone Group, one of the first private equity firms to begin buying<br />foreclosed homes in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, then fixing them up and renting them out.<br />Two of the bigger institutional owners of single-family rentals in the United States are planning to merge in the latest sign<br />that affordable housing is becoming harder to find as home prices recover in much of the United States.<br />Yet the acquisition of foreclosed homes has slowed in recent years as real estate prices have recovered in many markets<br />that were a focus of companies like Invitation Homes and Starwood Waypoint Homes.<br />Invitation Homes and Starwood Waypoint Homes on Thursday announced a $4.3 billion stock deal, which the companies called a merger of equals.<br />There are about 17 million single-family rentals in the United States, most of which are owned by mom-and-pop landlords.
