What does it mean when Wall Street mega-landlords that bought the impaired assets after the last crash are trying to unload during the worst economic crisis on record?
By Nick Corbishley, for WOLF STREET:
With Spain in the grip of its deepest recession on record, house prices have begun to fall for the first time since 2015 on a year-over-year basis. In a bid to buck this trend, Aliseda and Anticipa, two real-estate firms that private-equity giant Blackstone acquired in 2017 from Banco Santander, have pledged to reimburse investors up to one tenth of the sale price if the value of the properties they buy drops by more than a tenth in the three months after a deal is sealed.
Many of the 8,400 properties on offer have been sitting on the market since 2018, without finding a buyer. The total portfolio is valued at €1.04 billion. Now, Blackstone is trying everything it can to offload the properties, including offering investors the sweetener of a little extra security.
Blackstone is the biggest private landlord in Spain, with some 100,000 real estate assets in the country, including a huge portfolio of impaired assets, such as defaulted mortgages and the homes that back them, and real estate-owned assets (REOs), that are controlled via dozens of companies. It is heavily exposed to any downturn and has an obvious interest in keeping Spain’s ultra-fragile housing recovery going. That could be why it’s offering such enticing inducements to attract buyers.
“We detected the current context was generating uncertainty for buyers, and wanted to provide them with security and send a message of confidence in the Spanish real estate market,” said Aliseda communications director Jaime Navarro.
The initiative could be a sly marketing ruse, says Spanish financial daily El Confidencial. Aliseda already reduced its offer prices before the Covid-19 outbreak, after surmising at the beginning of this year that Spain’s roughly five-year housing boom was running out of steam. After the lockdown, it undertook another price review and reductions, to where its asking prices could be reasonably well adjusted to the new reality.
But the offer could also send the opposite of its intended message, giving investors the impression that some of the biggest sellers are so worried about the prospect of cascading prices in a market that was already running out of steam before Covid arrived that they’re willing to do just about anything to attract prospective buyers. And that might be enough to convince those prospective buyers to sit on their hands a little while longer, putting further downward pressure on prices.
Eduard Mendiluce, chief executive of Aliseda and Anticipa, insists that the prices of the properties are “highly competitive and that now is a good time to buy a home.”
Spain has so far suffered the biggest post-Covid economic contraction of any EU Member State, including Italy, Greece and Portugal. It has also seen the sharpest rise in unemployment.
Memories are still fresh of the last housing crisis, which was triggered by the collapse of a ten-year housing bubble, during which prices almost tripled, and culminated in a seven-and-a-half year long housing bust. Since then, in many places, prices have not come close to recovering their former boom-era levels. And now, the lukewarm recovery that began in 2015 may be in the process of unraveling.
In the third quarter of this year, as the number of housing sales languished far below 2019 levels, particularly in prime markets such as Madrid and Catalonia, Spain’s national median price suffered its first year-over-year fall, of 0.4%, since 2015, according to real estate appraiser Tinsa’s house price index. Prices fell year-over-year in all but three of Spain’s 18 autonomous communities, those three being the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, and Asturias.
The worst-hit regions were La Rioja and Extremadura, where prices slumped 6.6% and 6% respectively. In the two largest markets, Madrid and Barcelona, prices fell 3.6% and 4.7% respectively, and are still down 28% and 27% from their boom-time peaks (prices in thousand euros per square meter, chart via Tinsa):
Median home prices in Spain as a whole have only recovered 13.7% from the trough in 2015. In some places, prices have barely recovered at all. In La Rioja they rebounded just 13% since 2015 and are still down a whopping 52% from their boom-time peak. In Galicia, prices began falling last year and are down 1.7% over the past five years. In two other regions, Castilla y Leon and Extramadura, prices are lower than they were in 2015, having fallen 1.3% and 3.7% respectively.
In some Spanish cities, the year-over-year price drops in the third quarter were particularly dramatic, in some cases reaching well into double figures: Granada (-8,5%), Almería (-8,8%), Teruel (-9,3%), Ávila (-10,4%) Cuenca (-14,5%) and Soria (-19,5%).
Private equity giants like Blackstone bought many of these assets at huge discounts in the wake of the last crisis, since they were the only large market participants with enough funds on hand to buy vast packages of foreclosed homes and failed property schemes. Blackstone has also become a huge player in Spain’s rental market, and has profited from the surging rents over those years. But conditions have changed. Since the lockdown, apartments, some possibly used as Airbnb units during the tourist boom, have flooded the rental market, and have pushed rents lower in many of the hottest markets, including Barcelona, Madrid and Malaga. By Nick Corbishley, for WOLF STREET.
As if that wasn’t enough, owners of empty apartments also face the ever present risk that the apartments could be occupied by squatters. For many, squatting is a desperate last resort. For others, it’s a lifestyle choice or political statement. Barcelona, ground zero of the phenomenon, attracts squatters from all over Europe. Read… How Spain Became a Squatter’s Paradise
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Squatters will have to hurry if they want to secure a spot in a Blackstone residence.
but in SPAIN the squatters win
if you don’t inform ‘authorities’ within 3 days of them squatting that
1) squatters can now sit quietly while you go to court(6 months+)
2) pay squatters enough to MOVE OUT OF YOUR PROPERTY
Rats (big ones) leaving the sinking ship. Except in the case of Blackstone it is because they chewed holes in the bottom of the hull sharpening their teeth.
Does history repeat itself, or does it just rhyme?
2019: “Last October, before the coronavirus struck,Bloomberg said the company had put eight office blocks in Shanghai and Beijing up for sale, seeking USD 8 billion.”
In 2008, “China’s Blackstone holdings lost, on paper, about $1 billion, during a time when the composite index of the Shanghai Stock Exchange was soaring.”
“New York: September 25, 2003 – The Blackstone Group announced today the closing of its second Collateralized Debt Obligation investment vehicle bringing the total CDOs under management to $1 billion.” (Remember what happened to those CDOs in 2008?)
“Now is always a good time to buy a home”
Should read “ Now is always a good time to be a bag holder”
They say, if you enter a poker game and you can’t identify the mark, your it.
These properties were acquired at the depth of the last crisis, and are being unloaded at the cusp of the next. Some things never change.
Exactly, it’s so obvious and yet they tell us home sales are at very high numbers I can’t understand the stupidity of people
Calm before the storm. Once Speculators exist the market, there wont be sufficient organic demand for all this high end supply, at least in the us. Prices will have to come down to whatever median family can pay before parasites start re entering the market.
“Prices will have to come down to whatever median family can pay”
Bingo. Logical. Except the current system is so corrupt and distorted that anything goes as we wait for the return to the mean. Of 2000AD? 1900AD? 1000AD? 10AD? 1000BC?
I can’t speak for Spain, but it seems to me a great time for first time buyers to get into the market. With interest rates as low as they are, at least in the US, houses will likely not be going down in price for a long time.
In hot markets like Southern Florida, houses don’t stay on the market long despite their rapidly accelerating prices.
Low interest rates have exactly the opposite risk factor from what you describe. If interest rates are as low as they can go then it means home prices have nowhere to go but down. If interest rates go up ( as they must eventually ) then it will raise payments and decrease the cost of the house people can qualify for. We are at the end of a 40 year supercycle of declining interest rates and increasing real estate prices. In the next cycle interest rates will go up, and RE prices will go down.
What if rates go down and prices go down. Then what?
Real estate is a 10 year trade cycle…you have to time it, and it works almost every time. As for Fla that’s a retirement demand issue; been looking for 2 years from Tampa on south to Naples and prefer to rent for now rather than get stuck with an old cow that does not generate enough rent to justify a buy.
Do you think the Fed will allow interest rates to increase?
It seems to me they are motivated to keep them low and are doing everything they can to keep them low. I’m not a realtor, this is just my observation
“In the next cycle interest rates will go up”
So when do you think the next cycle is?
I cannot see interest rates going up for a long long time.
Governments, corporations and individuals would not be able to make the payments even with a small increase in interest rates.
Even if the interest rates dont go up wait till the mortgage and rent forbearance ends.
No matter if interest rates ever go up or how high, banks will never again (in our lifetime) pay above current nothing on savings accounts.
1:10 ratio. For every +/- 1% change in (loan) interest will have a -/+ 10% change in RE price.
If esteemed members can elicit what that law/ratio is termed,
much obliged.
Certainly as a buyer looking forward to having to sell in the future, you are right. I remember 13% rates and seller financed sales.
But if you plan on living there for a while low rates are great. I have been where I am for over 25 years. Churning RE is very costly.
David I don’t think you get it Southern Florida Great if you like heat,humidity and critters Add in hurricane and flooding risk from sea level rise and you can have it
Did I mention the South and Central Americans, and the snowbirds
Funny that a state so horrible, attracts all those snowbirds.
Closer than Texas and is chock full of seniors. Plus, good medical care, no state income tax, lots of nice beaches, etc.
I’m from Connecticut and pretty much all my lifelong Connecticut friends moved to Florida. It’s just where everyone went.
I’m in Texas as that’s where I landed when I left California.
Florida is closer than Texas and is chock full of seniors. Plus, good medical care, no state income tax, lots of nice beaches, etc.
I’m from Connecticut and pretty much all my lifelong Connecticut friends moved to Florida. It’s just where everyone went.
I’m in Texas as that’s where I landed when I left California.
Frederick
I have some REAL bad news for you: if the sea level rises in Miami it also (…here’s the hard part…) rises in NYC.
As for your comments about “…South and Central Americans…”, wait until you find out some of your ancestors were (gasp!) immigrants. Oh the shame!
I suppose the Europeans, UK folks, Russians, and many Asians could be classified as ”seasonal residents” the non perjorative and thus PC name for the yankees who used to come down to FL most years, and spoil all the local labor and equally spoil the RE mkt, while ”stiffing” the paper boy when they left without paying for their last weeks or month of papers.
OTOH, the base mkt, as has been mentioned on this thread, will revert to what the locals can afford, maybe if only for a few months now a days, as opposed to at least a year or two, ”back in the day.”
Same for SF Bay Area, though I don’t suppose the rent on the shot gun apt once enjoyed there, 12.5 feet by 75 feet, will ever revert to the $50 per month it was in the ’68-70 era.
I live in SWFL and the prices are now higher than they were than during the last big bubble.
I don’t work in RES but watch it. The average dumpy fixxer upper you could have bought in the Tampa-St. Pete-Sarasota market for $35-50K in 2009-14, are now asking $149-$179K. And these places need a LOT of work.
My guess, based on the botched Covid-19 response and how real estate is a trailing economic indicator is that within 2 yrs, the same dumpy fixxer-uppers will be at or below the 2009-14 prices.
You can get a low interest rate right now but the prices are astronomical.
One parcel I watched over the years went like this. Whatever it’s really worth….I’d rather be buying in 2013 and am happy to wait out the bottom of the next curve vs. taking it in the shorts on the price.
88: $250K
04: $900K
05: $3M
13: $350K
18: $1M
Just a numbers check:
After inflation, $250k in 1988 translates to $549k in 2020.
Sure great time to buy if you think the mortgage and rent forbearance will last forever!
LOL
Found the realtor!
David,
Been watching the FL RE mkt since 1956, and I will just mention one recent anecdote to illustrate what can and has many times happen(ed) …
In late 06 a friend showed me a prospectus for a couple of 1600SF houses side by side on a deep canal with ”sailboat water” to the gulf listed for about $850K each.
Couple of years later, the same houses were on an auction notice, with starting bid $225K each…
Same thing has happened many times over the last 65 years or so, and will likely happen again and again.
When we had to return to tpa bay area in ’15, to take care of very elderly parents, we paid $80K for a small cottage, for low maintenance, our choice in a safe stable high altitude,,, (HA, 45′) area near them; it’s now valued at well over $200K, but will likely go back to about midway between those two levels within a couple of years, then accelerate fantastically once more, then drop again, etc., etc….
@ VintageVNvet –
I spent some early years in FL, various spots, one being Lakeland.
In those years, to me Florida seemed to move about 20 years behind California as far as property valuations.
For those who can navigate markets, volatility well played can yield good returns.
Southwest Florida is a completely different place than years ago. Population pressure seems to be building. That may change price movements. It changed things in California – Prices moved to a whole new higher band-width, a crushing one for new buyers. Property owners got rich, non property owners became rent slaves.
It’s a failure in governance that Spain’s largest landlord is a foreign owned private equity firm.
I think it’s called Globalization ……….
Made possible by Financialization …………..
A new form of Feudalism …………
Only made possible by advanced corruption …….,
A centerpiece of which is the FED and it’s owners ………..
Meanwhile, a Spanish company is buying up Detroit.
Suckers!!!!
Hahahaha
Maybe you better learn Chinese.
You think prices would have not gone down further without them?
I totally agree. That company is a stain on the planet. That the government here lets them get away with it says a lot about Spanish politics….
Does anyone know of a simple primer for economic language and processes? An “explain it like I’m 5” sort of primer? A web site or a short book? I don’t want to become an economist- just want to have a better understanding.
I’ve never taken a course in this and I’m at a loss with a lot of the terms and processes.
Lynn,
I like The Economist’s dictionary:
https://www.economist.com/economics-a-to-z/s
The problem is of course not word definition, it’s the unstated secret handshake insider knowledge of processes, like
“If A, then B, leading to C.” or “D causes F, which creates G.”
The financial markets are diverse, even experts don’t know everything. Keep reading and look up what you don’t understand. The really confusing stuff is done on purpose to obscure the fraud. Don’t feel bad if you don’t get it, eventually you will.
It would also help if people didn’t use abbreviations and acronyms all the time. Write it out the first time.
Completely agree !! You only have to write it out the 1st time, then acronym away in your post.
Take a look at investopedia. They give pretty good “explain like I am 5” pieces to get you started on understanding just about everything market related (and yes it is free.)
The Balance is excellent also. They cover numerous topics including economics. A good primer with lots of links to other sources. From there you can just google a question or click on links for more in depth information when reading articles.
https://www.thebalance.com/economic-theory-4073948
That will teach Blackstone to speculate in a country that may not bail them out. Maybe the Fed can help?
Didn’t the FED bail out European banks last time around There is nothing “ American” about those people They are internationalists and could care less about America or Spain for that matter
“if the value of the properties they buy drops by more than a tenth in the three months”. Seriously? This is no gamble.
When was the last time housing prices fell 10% in 3 months? And where?
Las Vegas in 2009 was close I believe Same thing in Phoenix AZ
Maybe it was 6 months but it was a severe collapse
Funny I feel 10% 3 months is the big red flag for investors.
I was talking with my financial advisor a year ago exactly whom I tend to listen to 1% of his advice and have offered more advice to him overtime, regardless all he offered me was buy Boeing and a bunch of other failures which I would then turn around and explain to him “Repo market” and no I’m keeping cash on the sidelines this baby is going down…
Then to the point he started waving major red flags that leaked blood offering a product to the doom and gloom investor called:
Brighthouse Financial Shield Level Select “6” year Shield options”
that were designed to protect the retail investor and gain in the event of a market crash and they used the example of GFC model?? Along with locking up the funds for 6 years!
oh boy I was terrified saying they are offering such a product with up front commissions (btw) the way it was designed based off the S&P 500 going down so would have been a major score once the all goes to heck in a straight line motto appeared but once it went back up it also doubles down as a major loss…
Wonder how they where so sure of such an outcome against the doom and gloom (and no I’m not doom and gloom but the reality in its self has created such doom and gloom no?
2010 or early 2011 in rural northern coastal California.
Florida in late 2008.
Also who buys a house and tries to sell it in 3 months? Blackstone is still up to its clever marketing tricks.
This suggests a possible scam involving hidden self dealing, though I’m guessing the Blackstone people have already thought of it and have prepared a counter.
Check the neighborhoods in MNPLS that were looted..
From the chart –
Home prices dropped to already insane 2017 levels (about a 10% drop).
Hardly the end of the world – unless you are leveraged 40:1
But the fun is just beginning…
Housing is a major part of ant Nations’ economy any where in the world.
With housing comes rest of the consumption related to home.
What’s happening in Spain is not entirely surprise as we head into post C0vid 19 global Economy. right now the single homw mkt is sizzling here. Come next year, will it still sizzling?
How many pre covid Jobs won’t comeback or altogether gone for ever. I am addressing the bottom 90% and not the ‘economy of the top 10%!
My fingers are crossed for the future of the housing mkt going forward in the near future, with our economy crawling at the bottom at best, since all the future growth has been forward and then some, since ’09!
No it won’t be
As they say, it is the ECONOMY!
Once the recession starts, every aspect of the Economy, all assets including houses and paper kind will affected. Study all BEAR mkts in
200 yrs of US history.
Denial is natural for those (45 yr or younger) who have never experienced a secular Bear, in their life time!
we had an UP cycle supported by insane credit creation since ’09 with ‘record expansion” of Economy over 10 years. DOWN cycle is ahead, cannot be kicked down for ever.
(Been in the mkt since ’82)
It wasn’t that long ago that a home was looked at as a depreciating asset that barely kept up with inflation. Adding in taxes, maintenance, insurance, etc, you actually lost money.
That you should plan to live in the same house for at least seven years just to make up closing costs.
Renting a similar structure was actually more expensive that buying as it eliminated risk.
Housing was never looked at as a “major part of the economy” because it produces nothing.
Factories, farms, mines, industry, classic education, power generation, small businesses, etc. used to be considered major parts of the economy…because they actually created wealth for a nation.
Now its health care, government and selling houses to each other. Nothing that produces wealth so it all must be fueled by debt.
‘Housing was never looked at as a “major part of the economy” because it produces nothing’
Produces NOTHING. True!
But it is major part of Consumption based Economy in western Countries including USA! Beside More people in the bottom 80-90% have and depend on equity in their homes for retirement (even though many financial advisers are against it!)
Wonder why didn’t they let Housing bust go full blown during GFC b/c ‘it produces NOTHING/ right?
Yeah, but now it’s work from home.
I could be wrong, but I think what many are constantly pointing out is that the housing market couldn’t possibly sustain itself. The overall economic situation is simply too dire.
Wall Street is propped up by the Fed. Massive unemployment. Business going into bankruptcy and/or failing left and right. The free $ from the govt is ending soon. The evictions will start again. Commercial RE in the toilet (my area is chock full of ‘for sale’ and ‘for lease’ signs.
In 2005, I tried to buy a home in St. Petersburg, FL. They were selling in about 2 weeks, then a week, then going under contract the same day! Prices starting going over asking. As a former busboy, I can honestly tell you when the busboy is giving your RE investment advice, the market might be overheated.
This looks and feels like “deja vu all over again”. Hence, I got out and am happy to rent my friend’s 1940 cottage until it seems safe to dip the toe back into the water.
There is a lot of under appreciation of the primary, secondary and tertiary ill effects of Covid 19 on the global (+US) economy slowly being unravelled by weeks /months. More than 50% businesses now, closed will never comeback per Yelp.
The ‘new normal’ in the post Covid 19 world will never like pre covid, at any stretch. How many businesses and jobs will come back? Hospitality and the tourist industry are decimated. Air travel may not come to the level 2019 level until 2024!
Who wants to mingle any activity in a CROWD and or in closed space? Vaccines are hopium spewn by WAll St. The last successful vaccine was for measles, which took nearly 4 yrs! Still we don’t have vaccine for SARS or MERS.
Pelosi want to give another bailout in billions to air lines. But how long that will last? No demand of accountability re airlines buying over 26 Billions in their buy back program,over the last ten years.
Boeing spent 43 Billions but NOT a dime to fix 737 Max!
I think it should be k€/m2 on the graph
Yes. Thanks.
Getting the cash together for this spring. The moratorium ends Jan 1 and evictions and foreclosure can start up again….gather the nuts for a long winter.
Spain, home of the spaghetti westerns. Not much has come from there before that, not much since. I’m not so sure Spain will be any sort of indicator for what will happen in the US or other more developed western nations. That being said, I hope the best for them. It’s been a crappy time for everyone this year.
Who knows, maybe it’s time for another western and they’ll be the place to be. Clint’s still alive.
I wouldn’t be so cocky Bobby You May have to eat some crow
Developed Western nations? You’re kidding right?
Everybody I’ve ever met who spent time in Spain described it as utterly wonderful. I’ve been wanting to go for many moons and will some day in the not too distant future!
I lived there (Madrid) for 10 years. If you like going to bars. meeting people and eating out, I can’t think of many better. Food is great in general but you can get some bad restaurants. There is some very nice countryside too. But learn some Spanish before you go if you can, makes a massive difference. House prices/rents are way too high. Difficult to get a good job. Wages generally not so good either, but cost of living relatively low.
Bob, I think you misspelled ‘Italy’.
As I understood it, most of the filming was done in Spain and most of the extras were Spanish. I may have mispeeled it, though.
The Bob who cried Wolf,
Have you been to Spain? I recommend you go as soon as you can. Wonderful place.
In terms of tech, for example, they build their own high-speed trains, and they work, and they export them too. We in the US can’t even get them started, and if we can get them started, we have to import the trains because we’re not designing and manufacturing this stuff here.
I get it that there’s a macro view, but how does what’s happening in Spain forecast or reflect what’s going to happen here? A world wide depression would be a catastrophe; is that what we’re saying is going to happen here because Spain is having issues? Their economy can’t in any way shape or form be compared to ours.
I don’t think anyone is making this situation in Spain into a forecast for the US.
Hey Wolf, America is building train cars in Chicago! Of course it’s a Chinese-owned company. But what the heck, that’s a few jobs here – until the cars are built. I’m not holding my breath for exports.
I don’t think they’re “high-speed” train units. They’re subway-type cars.
visited south of Spain in summer of 2016 and had a blast for 2 weeks super reasonable package 5 hotels, 1 car, round trip airfare all for under $4200 party of 4 – all I kept saying is how can all these vacation homes, resorts endless housing going to keep sustaining its self?
It just seemed so out of control back then!
Best part is Blackstone is most likely going to sell these homes to come back to the states and reinvest in purchasing up zip codes all over again in 2021 and make up for the fund!
Maybe Spain can go into the houses of worship that converted from mosques to churches filled with relics of solid gold sell the gold and reinvest like the central bankers into the stock market.
I highly doubt the prophets message was paint me in gold 2000 years ago so maybe its not such a bad idea?
We spent 3 months in Spain a few years ago. It’s a lovely country with caring people.
We stayed in hostels or rented apartments for a week at a time, traveled by train. We had wonderful food and I fell in love with Cava.
The cost was about $2500. mo for both of us. I want to go back and explore more.
Did you see Sexy Beast? I’ll suggest retired safe crackers.
The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain manilla of vulture capitalists envelopements!
Solution is simple. Just offload them to AirBnb. Have that company take some inventory risk.
Failing that, there’s always Softbank, world’s biggest sucker.
New WeWork locations?
Who decides when your property “value” falls 10% (or did I miss it in the piece)?
The important thing isn’t property “value”, it is just that ownership of property is properly concentrated in order to extract rents from debt and wage slaves.
I get that – here in Pottersville, Blackstone owns half the town from the last go around.
Just wondering how completely bogus it is. They can’t go off the tax valuation cuz that’s only once a year (here in the US). Do you have to get an appraisal? Can you appeal? Does it go to arbitration?
Much of property value is just a fabrication of created and extended debt, based on the maximum monthly payment the highest bidder borrower can afford. The government help and finance agencies, VA, FHA, HUD etc. are horrible things for people who want to buy homes for their own use. All they have done in many communities is drive up prices, enrich financiers, and burden homebuyers with long term, risky, maximum payments.
Having half of the town owned by Blackstone reduces the value by 50% anyway.
I imagine — because I don’t “know” either — that they make you prove it, and that you have to jump through hoops to prove it.
Lenert,
The decision will be based on the performance over the three month period of the house price index published by the Spanish Ministry of Public Works and Transport (Fomento) for the areas in which each property is located.
The 1% against the 99% ,,,,,, trending to the .01% against the 99.99%.
100,000 units in one country, owned by a private equity firm is an example of how concentrated ownership, wealth and power, aided by government laws and central bank chicanery, puts the commoners under the yoke of the overlords in a rentier economy.
Most of us are just cows on the plantation.
Private Equity
It resembles a Gang of Capitalists pooling their wealth to gain scale advantages over individuals. The power is magnified when government can be co-opted along the way. Couple that with low cost money made possible by interest rate suppressing “create $ from nothing” central banks, and you have quite a recipe for success through the oppression of individuals. It’s interesting how many Government leaders had stakes in the Carlyle Group.
The Collectivization of Capitalization. Corporations, Private Equity, etc.
and they’ll have you think it’s the working of Free Markets ……….
Getting out before the Brexit vote kicks in and another permanent GDP contraction most likely.
OK but is anybody dumb enough to buy just before Brexit?
Blackstone loses all this $$$ after buying distressed assets which never performed to projected levels. Blackstone unloads the assets at a net capital and operating loss. Why would anyone buy Blackstone stock ? I kinda feel sorry for the investors, they must be losing a lot of $$$.
Can’t say I feel sorry for the investors. They know what kind of business they were investing in. I feel sorry for the people who rented a Blackstone property, given the stories I’ve heard about lack of maintenence etc.