Last week, a group of 80 tenant and neighborhood advocacy organizations, including the National Community Reinvestment Coalition and the National Consumer Law Center, asked federal regulators “to address first-time homebuyers being outbid, tenants being displaced, and neighborhoods undergoing dramatic changes as private equity and investor cash continues flooding into local housing markets.”

Gray, 44, said the influence of corporate investors on home prices has been exaggerated. They represent at most 10 percent of the 2 million homes bought by investors in the last two years, according to Rahmani, the analyst.

“There’s a narrative out there that institutional buyers are driving the market,” Gray said. “But the reality is that institutional buyers are in a relatively limited number of markets, their buying is tapering and yet home prices continue to go up at a pretty strong clip nationally -- even in markets where institutional buyers haven’t purchased a single home.”

American Homes

At the height of its activity, Blackstone’s Invitation Homes LP made purchases that may have comprised as much as 6 percent of sales for several months in one or more of its 14 markets, Gray said. This may have had a short-term impact on prices, he added.

“We definitely helped alleviate excess distressed housing stock,” he said. “We weren’t 5 or 6 percent for a sustainable period of time in any market.”

American Homes 4 Rent has slowed its buying in some of its 42 markets, chief executive officer David Singelyn said at a March 5 investor conference in Florida. It added 2,001 homes in the quarter ending Dec. 31, down 32 percent from the previous quarter’s 2,941 homes, according to a statement yesterday. It added 1,533 homes in January and February, bringing its total inventory to 24,801.

The benefit of being in 22 states is that the Agoura Hills, California-based company has the ability to move within many locations and “buy as the opportunities ebb and flow,” Singelyn said.

Colony Financial Inc., a REIT that invests in Colony American Homes, slowed its funding for acquisitions last year to focus on improving operations, CEO Richard Saltzman said in a November conference call. Colony Financial has been gradually allocating less to the landlord business and capped its investment at $550 million for the quarter ending Dec. 31, Saltzman said last month.

Slowing Purchases