Goldman Sachs-Backed Funds Buy Up Entire Florida Neighborhood for $45 Million

By Abby Liebing May 16, 2022 at 10:00am

In the midst of a growing housing and economic crisis, Wall Street investors are using this as an opportunity to purchase rental properties.

Two investment funds backed by Goldman Sachs bought a community of Florida homes for $45 million, WFLA reported.

The development is Cypress Bay, which is located in Brevard County in Palm Bay, Florida. It is a community of 87 single-family rental homes.

Goldman Sachs-Backed Rental Fund Buys Entire Community Of 87 Single-Family Homes In Central Floridahttps://t.co/Vr0Tl6lQ96

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The two funds, Growth eREIT VII and Fundrise Interval Fund, have been focusing on buying properties in the south as they have watched population trends shift, the New York Post reported.

Fundrise previously bought a 120-unit development in Pensacola and has been focusing on other rental development in places like South Carolina and Mississippi.

Real estate experts predict that Wall Street will keep investing in the south as rent prices continue to rise and there is a noticeable trend of the population moving to these locations.

Previously, the south was disregarded by Wall Street, but as the economy is getting shaken up, Americans are moving.

Have you considered buying real estate in Florida or the south?

“You are seeing more and more of this. The attraction of Florida is the same as places like Texas and Tennessee and North Carolina. These are places people are moving to and where we can expect to see future increases in population,” Ken Johnson, professor of real estate at Florida Atlantic University, told the Post.

However, this kind of real estate investing is putting many, who are financially hurting and looking for cheaper housing, in a tight spot.

“Investors come in and of course invest. Property just goes off the roof, which marginalizes a whole lot of people who just can’t afford it. Especially those in Brevard County who make less than $46,000 a year,” Bishop Merton L. Clark of Truth Revealed International Ministries told WESH News.

All over the U.S., people are having a hard time as they face rising rent prices, and many can’t afford to buy homes.

One study found that 61 percent of renters across the biggest metropolitan areas in the U.S. are priced out of home ownership, even if they saved up for a down payment, Porch.com found.

The average home in the U.S. costs seven times the average household income, which forces people to rent and try handle the ever increasing rent prices.

Florida, for instance, has seen rents spike by more than 30 percent overall; other states in the south have seen similar price increases, the Post reported.

Meanwhile, Wall Street investors have the money and capital to invest big time in real estate, which will make them money, but some analysts say it could out price the common man.

“The degree of large Wall Street money coming in fairly new. I think this is due to the unique circumstance of housing shortage,” the Chief Economist of the National Associate of Realtors Dr. Lawrence Yun told WESH News. “Wall Street is able to generate money, private equity, hedge funds and others to say let’s go chase the rising rents and putting money into rental property development.”

It is important to note that there is disagreement among analysts about how corporate purchases like this will affect rental prices.

Johnson, however, believes that investments like this are just a “drop in the bucket” of overall home transactions throughout the country, according to the Post.

He claimed that even large-scale corporate purchases in concentrated areas do have enough “market power” to really dictate rental prices, the Post reported.

However, there is agreement that the housing economy’s landscape is changing and shifting, particularly as the south keeps attracting the eye of individual buyers and, now, Wall Street.

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