Blackstone's Home Partners Launches $1B Affordable Housing Program
The program is offering below market rents and paths to homeownership for critically underserved populations.
Blackstone’s Home Partners of America is rolling out a $1 billion program in which it will buy rental homes, rent them at a discount to people at a certain income level and then allow them to buy the homes at below market prices.
The program, called Choice Lease, is designed to prevent crowding out of potential home buyers during this competitive home buying market, the company says.
“The lack of housing supply is a national crisis,” Kathleen McCarthy, Global Co-Head of Blackstone Real Estate said in prepared remarks. We are proud to support Home Partners’ mission of addressing housing access and affordability while also providing underserved populations with a new path to homeownership. Blackstone’s scale and long-term capital make a program like this possible.”
Choice Lease residents are expected to have median incomes of approximately $55,000, well below the median income for US homebuyers of $93,200.
Choice Lease is intended for households with income of less than 80% of area median income (AMI) and affords them the same flexibility and benefits as its original Lease Purchase program, while offering rental rates that are approximately 10% below prevailing market rates.
Home Partners’ platform enables families, often who are not mortgage-ready, to identify a home they want to buy, and then purchases the home on their behalf and leases it to them with long-term fixed rate rental and purchase options.