Wall Street has invaded Main Street. It’s truly stunning to see that a company like Invitation Homes owns over 10,000 units in California. Today, I want to debut an interactive map I made to show where these homes are located.
UPCOMING (PUBLIC) SPEAKING GIGS:
12/08/23 Free Q&A event for appraisers only (on private work)
11am PST one hour – click link here (see pass code)
Meeting ID: 832 2414 3890 Passcode: 007
01/31/24 Joel Wright & Mike Gobbi Event 9am (on Zoom here)
2/09/24 PCAR WCR Event (details TBA)
3/11/24 Yolo Association of Realtors (details TBA)
4/25/24 HomeSmart iCare Realty (details TBA)
UPDATED MAP on 12/18/2023
I updated my post title to say 10,000+ instead of 9,000+ in light of new information. This map now includes nearly 1,600 extra units. Invitation Homes merged with Starwood Waypoint years ago, and I found an extra 1,586 units owned by Starwood Waypoint. These units are now being included in what Invitation Homes owns. Frankly, this number is likely still conservative, but I’ll keep adding as I get better data (difficult to track).
INTERVIEW ON KQED on 12/19/2023:
KQED did a one hour special on Invitation Homes, and I was honored to be a guest along with a legislator and writer for Time Magazine. Listen here.
CHECK OUT THIS INTERACTIVE MAP
I created this map to help show exactly where Invitation Homes owns properties throughout California. Scroll through Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Riverside County in particular. Or see map here.
Invitation Homes owns 10,761 units throughout many counties, but it’s mostly Greater Sacramento and Southern California. Nothing in the middle.
Counties with Largest Number of Invitation Homes Units:
– Los Angeles (3,017)
– Riverside (2,353)
– Sacramento (1,881)
– San Bernardino (1,383)
– Solano (774)
– Ventura (289)
– Placer (212)
– San Diego (216)
– Other (636)
The wider Sacramento region has 30.21% (or 3,255) of Invitation Homes units owned in California. This wider area includes Solano and San Joaquin. If it’s just Sacramento, Placer, Yolo, and El Dorado, that would be 20.2% of all units in California (2,180 units).
What’s mind-blowing to me is to click the map and zoom in to see how many units they own in various neighborhoods. Yikes.
SOME THOUGHTS
1) MAIN STREET INVADING WALL STREET: It’s sobering to see this company’s holdings on the neighborhood level because then it starts to feel really personal. This is a very local trend – not just a national stat where we can say Invitation Homes owns about 80,000 units across the country. Anyway, there needs to be discussion here. Is this what America should look like? Should big companies become giant landlords? How does this evolve in the future? How does this affect affordability and neighborhoods?
2) NOT BLACKSTONE: Often we see Invitation Homes confused as Blackstone, but Invitation Homes is not Blackstone. There used to be an affiliation with Blackstone, but that’s no longer the case.
3) NOT BUYING RIGHT NOW: The bulk of these units were purchased five to eleven years ago. I’m not aware of any location in the state where Invitation Homes is currently acquiring a large number of units. In Sacramento, Invitation Homes went on a rampage in 2012 and 2013, and purchased more steadily in subsequent years. The last unit they bought was in mid-2022 as far as I can tell.
4) NOT SELLING MUCH: They haven’t sold a massive amount through the years other than some non-performing assets. Many have said things like, “Bro, just wait until they sell,” but they really might not do that.
5) HOW I GOT THIS DATA: First, Invitation Homes is difficult to track because they have so many DBAs (over 50 in Sacramento alone). This means it’s extremely challenging to account for their properties. I honestly have wanted to share a map like this for years, but I finally cracked the code to figure out how to account for their properties by using the tax billing address instead of the owner name. 9,175 properties have the corporate headquarters in Dallas, TX as the listed tax address, and I found additional units with the Starwood Waypoint address in Arizona as the tax billing address (1,586 units).
Are there more? It’s possible there are other units not on my list, but this is the best way I’ve found so far to account for the properties. If anyone knows a better way to search, or if there are other properties with a different owner address, speak up.
NOTE: I scrubbed a few properties on the list due to address issues, so my map has 10,696 out of 10,761 units.
6) SHARING: You can share by linking to this post, linking to the map, embedding the map on your website (see code below), or take screenshots of images to share anywhere you want. I’d appreciate being cited since this took a good deal of effort. Let me know if you have any questions.
Code for embedding:
<iframe src=”https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=1GTASm8qlcyu9nj8XTew2VyrfcExNCOQ&ehbc=2E312F” width=”640″ height=”480″></iframe>
BLAMING BIG FUNDS ONLY (AN UPDATE):
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Questions: What stands out to you most about the map or information I shared today? I’d love to hear.
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