Lennar, the nation’s second-largest homebuilder, has built more homes than it’s capable of selling at the current asking prices. But instead of lowering home prices for the public, the company has launched an online marketplace available exclusively to deep-pocketed investors and corporate landlords to offload its housing stockpile.
The new platform offers search tools and sweetheart deals targeting C-suite customers like Blackstone and Greystar, the largest corporate landlords in the country, as well as smaller landlords. Real estate experts say Lennar is doing this to juice home sales and steer business toward its lucrative in-house mortgage lender — at the expense of consumers, who are being boxed out of homeownership and forced to pay ever-higher home and rental costs.
These all-in-one suites of services have become common as increasingly popular online real estate behemoths like Zillow and Rocket Mortgage have vertically integrated the homebuying process. These companies’ online platforms advertise listings and then funnel buyers toward their in-house mortgage lenders to maximize profits — a type of “kickback scheme” that generates profits at the homebuyers’ expense, according to experts and federal regulators.
Now Lennar, too, is getting in on the action with its online investor marketplace, one designed specifically for those looking to generate income from these properties. The search engine offers data analytics tailored to landlords, such as estimated returns for renting out the homes. The fine print in the new Lennar investor portal directs investors to use Lennar’s own mortgage lender to qualify for limited-time offers, instead of shopping around for other lending options.
Lennar’s new housing marketplace…
Auteur: Luke Goldstein
