Schwarzman’s pandemic splurge came just as his firm decided to double down on scooping up rental housing. During the housing crash of the Great Recession, Blackstone had snapped up underwater homes for cheap and eventually made a fortune. The Covid collapse offered Blackstone another bite at the apple. In 2021 and 2022, it bought up 200,000 new units of rental housing at bargain-basement interest rates, adding to a portfolio of more than 150,000 rentals and making Blackstone the nation’s biggest corporate landlord... and its rental portfolio has seen a healthy return of about $11 billion over the last decade, hiking rent on some of its properties by nearly 80 percent.
Fuck all billionaires but seriously fuck this guy.