Barry Sternlicht

When you’re at the helm of an empire like Starwood Capital Group, you’ve many irons in the fire, but CEO Barry Sternlicht continues to prove that, when it comes to evergreen investments, the residential sector is one that continues to smolder. 

In April, Starwood put its money on the table — 800 million big ones, to be exact — to purchase 11 master-planned communities from Hines. The properties in Dallas, Houston and Austin comprise 16,000 residential lots and hundreds of acres of Texas land. 

On the lending side, Starwood Property Trust underscored that commitment to residential development by lending $350 million in December on Fortress Investment Group, Bizzi & Partners and Bilgili Holdings’ almost-completed condominium tower at 125 Greenwich Street in Lower Manhattan; $195 million so Witkoff and Access Industries could refinance One High Line, also in New York; and, closer to its Florida home, $64 million as a bridge loan for Neology Development Group’s multifamily building in Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood. 

Residential is also the biggest asset class in Starwood Real Estate Income Trust, which in July 2025 lined up a $636 million refinance for one of its Sun Belt portfolios. 

Of course, as residential investment goes into both the debt and equity sides, Sternlicht is a trailblazer. He founded his firm in 1991 to purchase real estate and debt from the Resolution Trust Corporation, acquiring 7,000 multifamily units at a heavy discount. Two years later, he traded 6,400 of those units to Equity Residential, which became the largest publicly traded apartment owner in the U.S. 

During the Global Financial Crisis, Sternlicht and his team purchased residential lots in distressed markets they deemed fit for recovery, with a turnaround plan in mind. He launched Starwood Land Ventures to acquire 20,000 lots, and today has completed almost $4 billion in land acquisitions, including the Hines deals. 

Also in Starwood’s significant legacy is Starwood Waypoint Residential Trust, a single-family rental (SFR) spinoff from Starwood Property Trust that eventually merged with Invitation Homes to create one of the biggest public landlords of SFRs in the country. 

The list goes on and on, and so does Sternlicht and his savvy Starwood team.