Blackstone Group LP owns 50,000 rental homes. Now the firm wants to help people buy things to put in them. Blackstone, led by billionaire Stephen Schwarzman, acquired the domain name Lending.com and plans to use it to provide financing for U.S. consumers to buy goods from autos to air conditioners with the click of a mobile-phone button. As Wall Street banks and other traditional consumer lenders pull back from the market due to post-crisis banking-law changes, Blackstone, one of a group of less-regulated firms nicknamed the shadow-banking system, is diving in deeper. This year the buyout firm took over Finance of America Mortgage and acquired a majority stake in national home-loan lender...
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