There are 14 million single-family rentals in the U.S., but less than 1 percent are owned and managed by institutional investors, Starwood Waypoint Residential Trust’s co-CEO, Doug Brien, tells Forbes’ Tom Taulli.
The product of a merger of Waypoint Homes and a subsidiary of Starwood Capital Group, the REIT — spunoff Monday from Starwood Property Trust Inc., and now trading on the New York Stock Exchange as SWAY — says it’s “Reinventing Renting” (it’s actually trademarked the term) by investing in nonperforming loans that it can manage as rentals using its proprietary technology platform, Compass.
More than 550 employees manage a growing portfolio of approximately 6,800 homes and nonperforming loans, the company says.
Brien says the Oakland, Calif.-based company has “had a focus on technology from the start,” using cloud computing and mobile to get the information “to the right people at the right time,” and focusing on “big data” to improve performance.
By analyzing “involuntary turnover,” the company changed its resident underwriting three times in 2013, which has helped returns, Brien said. Source: Forbes.com.