BlackRock to start financing US rental-home investors: sources

Washington

BLACKROCK Inc is the latest company planning to finance investors who buy single-family homes, capitalising on soaring rental demand as the US homeownership rate sits at a five-decade low.

BlackRock, the world's largest money manager, will buy loans from a network of partners that offer financing to the firm's specifications starting as soon as next month, said two people with knowledge of the plans, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Its lending partners also will offer funds to renovate homes that will become rental properties, one of the people said.