Homeowners Beware: Wall Street Analysts Think Your Property Could Be Overvalued By Almost 40%

The trend of institutional funds and big investment groups buying large tranches of single-family homes has been blamed for exacerbating America's housing affordability crisis. Some states, such as California and New York, have even introduced legislation that would curb or outlaw the practice entirely. Now, Wall Street investors are exiting the market, and a recent study shows this could have a reverse boomerang effect that leaves many American homes overvalued by as much as 35%.

This could create a financial nightmare for millions of American homeowners, whose net worth is often tied to their home's value. The Wall Street Journal reported that real estate analytics firm Green Street reached those conclusions after analyzing the property portfolios of some of America's biggest landlords. 

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It revealed a huge disparity between stock prices for some of America's biggest single-family rental landlords, like Invitation Homes INVH and American Homes 4 Rent (NYSE: AMH), and their net asset values, the report said. 

The analysis shows that the value of Invitation Homes shares translates to home values of around $310,000 in areas where the home's "current market values" are around $415,000. That large disparity is a cause for concern among Green Street's analysts. The firm's managing director, John Pawlawski, told The Journal, "Share prices are signaling that single-family-home prices are too high and not sustainable."

It's long been speculated that the tremendous buying power of institutional investors, who are known to buy hundreds of homes in single markets at once, is one of the main contributing factors to America's housing affordability crisis. Their simultaneous exit from the market en masse could slow property appreciation rates in many of America's biggest real estate markets. 

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During their more aggressive buying sprees, institutional landlords relied on deep pockets and lower interest rates to muscle their way into the real estate market, much to the chagrin of first-time buyers who couldn't compete. Meanwhile, those already fortunate enough to be homeowners reaped benefits in the form of faster appreciation.

However, that accelerated appreciation and the post-COVID run-up in interest rates appear to have changed the equation for many institutional landlords. Most institutional landlords target capitalization rates between 5% to 6% to generate passive income for investors, but current home values and interest rates are putting potential returns in the 4% range. That may explain why they slowed their buying down in Q3 2024. 

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The downstream effect of a once abundant source of capital suddenly being removed from the market is that sellers and developers can no longer rely on big-pocketed investors to take on huge chunks of housing inventory all at once. That will likely lead to homes staying on the market longer and selling for less, which would inevitably eat into current home valuations when appraisers find cheaper comps in various real estate markets.

Who wins and who loses in Green Street's scenario depends on your place in the real estate market. Would-be buyers will likely cheer the potential price reductions. However, homeowners may lament the continued absence of institutional landlords if Green Street's analysis is accurate, and their properties are overvalued by 35%.

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