(WFLA/NBC News Channel) — Wall Street investors are capitalizing on the current housing crisis by investing in rental properties in Florida.
As WESH reports, one of the latest deals involves Cypress Bay, a community of 87 single-family rental homes at the very southern edge of Brevard County in Palm Bay, Florida.
Two investment funds have purchased the community of homes for $45 million. The funds are the Growth eREIT VII fund and the Fundrise Interval Fund, which were financially backed by New York-based investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Dr. Lawrence Yun, the Chief Economist of the National Associate of Realtors, says the move is relatively new for Wall Street.
“The degree of large Wall Street money coming in fairly new. I think this is due to the unique circumstance of housing shortage,” Yun said. “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.”
“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.
