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Investors No Longer in the Driver’s Seat
After accounting one out of four home sales in the depths of the housing recession and fueled turn-arounds in dozens of markets where waves of foreclosures and battered home values scared off other buyers, real estate investors today are playing a greatly diminished role in the housing recovery.
Institutional Investors Gobble up Presale Foreclosures
By: Steve Cook; Tue, Apr 23, 2013
In another sign of institutional investors' appetites for foreclosures, inventories of presale foreclosures have declined nearly twenty percent since last year as lenders have made volumes of foreclosures available via REO tapes to well-funded hedge funds eager to buy in bulk.
Investor Bloat Flattens Single Family Rents
By: editor; Thu, Apr 4, 2013
Nearly 4 million more single-family homes have been added to the rental market since 2005. This new supply has fully caught up with the increased rental demand during the housing crisis - causing single-family home rents to flatten nationwide.
Did Real Estate Investing Peak Last Year?
By: editor; Tue, Apr 2, 2013
Have real estate investments peaked? After years of growth during the Foreclosure Eva, investment purchases declined slightly last year after surging 64.5 percent in 2011. With the cost and competition to buy distress sales growing and prices for normal homes rising, will investors pull back and start cashing in their assets?
Foreclosure Inventory Ballooned in First Quarter
By: editor; Thu, Mar 28, 2013
The inventory of properties in the foreclosure process expanded by nearly 10 percent in the first quarter, casting a pall over the housing recovery as local markets prepare for more foreclosures than expected. However, a high level of demand driving by investor activity may mitigate their impact.
Hispanic Real Estate Professionals Attack Investor-favored Policies
By: editor; Thu, Mar 28, 2013
Last week the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals called on lawmakers in Congress and government officials to reverse investor-favored policies that have created an imbalance in housing inventory and unfavorable conditions for Hispanics and other first-time homebuyers.
Short Sales Are Growing Longer
By: Steve Cook; Wed, Mar 27, 2013
Perhaps the greatest advantage of a short sale to beleaguered homeowner facing default and foreclosure is the opportunity to move on with life and put the bad debt behind them as quickly as possible. That advantage is shrinking as short sales take longer to sell than foreclosures.
Florida Shifts into Reverse
By: Steve Cook; Wed, Mar 20, 2013
While the rest of the nation's housing markets experience various levels of recovery, most markets in Florida seem to be relapsing to the heyday of the Foreclosure Era after a brief period of improvement.
Hedge Funds are Fueling Foreclosure Inflation
By: Steve Cook; Tue, Mar 19, 2013
Though hedge fund purchases on a national level have had minimal impact, in the nation's hottest foreclosure markets hedge funds, or institutional investors, are contributing to double digit foreclosure price increases and dramatic declines in REO inventories.
Are Hedge Funds Blowing Bubbles?
By: Steve Cook; Wed, Mar 13, 2013
Last month the New Republic published a provocative article on hedge funds and real estate investing (Your New Landlord Works on Wall Street) by former TV producer David Dayen. He said out loud what many people have been whispering.
Single Family Renters More Likely to Stay in Place
By: editor; Mon, Feb 25, 2013
Single family home tenants are 18 percent more likely than apartment tenants to stay in their current homes five years or longer, suggesting that demand for single family homes, the fastest growing rental category, will be more stable than multifamily demand, according to a new national opinion survey released today by Premier Property Management Group.
Hedge Funds Shrink Foreclosure Discounts
By: Steve Cook; Mon, Jan 14, 2013
Demand for foreclosures is so great and supplies are so low in some of the nation's hottest foreclosure markets popular with investors that the price differences between REOs and full-price homes have virtually disappeared.
The Foreclosure Iceberg is Slowly Melting
By: Steve Cook; Wed, Dec 5, 2012
Iinventories of foreclosures accumulated during the processing slowdown in the wake of the Robogate scandal are slowing shrinking, absorbed by demand so healthy that distress sales are actually rising faster on a national basis than full-priced homes.
Real Estate Investors are Bullish on the Near Term
By: editor; Thu, Sep 20, 2012
Despite rising prices and shrinking foreclosure inventories, 65 percent of active real estate investors plan to buy as many or more residential properties in the next 12 months as they did in the past year, according to a new joint BiggerPockets.com/Memphis Invest national survey conducted by ORC International for BiggerPockets.com, the nation's largest and most active real estate investing social network, and Memphis Invest, one of the nation's leading providers of single-family rental real estate investment services.
Foreign Buyers are Staying Home
By: editor; Thu, Sep 13, 2012
Rising prices, disappearing bargains and economic troubles at home are quickly thinning the ranks of foreign property buyers. Who, just a few months ago, were being hailed as a major force in Florida markets and other resort destinations.
Rising Prices Are Driving Out Investors
By: editor; Tue, Aug 28, 2012
Investor participation in the housing market dropped sharply in July, establishing a two-month trend and showing a clear reversal of long-term growth in investor purchases of residential properties, according to the Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey.
Fitch Raises the Bar for Single Family Rental Securities
By: Steve Cook; Wed, Aug 8, 2012
As interest grows in creating a marketplace to sell securitized blocks of single family rentals, similar to the securitization of mortgages, perhaps as early as this year, the authoritative ratings service Fitch Ratings today made it clear that the asset class poses some unique risks and that high investment grade ratings will be difficult to attain due to the lack of historical data and "ambitious growth strategies by regional operators".
Rush into Real Estate Rentals Becomes a Stampede
By: Steve Cook; Thu, Aug 2, 2012
On the same day the Census Bureau released the Q2 2012 Housing Vacancies and Homeownership report showing single family rental vacancies in the second quarter were lower than they have been since the first quarter of 2006, yet another well financed asset management company announced it will spend more than a billion buying, renting and selling distressed homes.
Single Family Rentals Ignite Management Boom
By: Steve Cook; Wed, Jul 25, 2012
The explosion of single family rentals-houses bought by real estate investors and rented to a single tenant-is creating a new category of property management companies to serve them.
Move-in Ready Foreclosures Dry Up
By: editor; Mon, Jun 25, 2012
Widespread shortages in housing inventories, especially in states that have experienced large price declines since 2006, are reducing the time homes for sale are spending on market, especially move-in ready foreclosures (REO) .
Single Family Rentals Now Exceed Multifamily
By: Steve Cook; Mon, Apr 23, 2012
While inventories of homes for sale have been shrinking this spring, MLSs are filling the void with rental listings for single family homes that until recently were foreclosures. Some 16.1 percent of all listings on MLSs today are rentals, more than double the number in 2006.
Banks and Investors Learn to Love Short Sales
By: Steve Cook; Tue, Apr 10, 2012
Lenders and investors no longer give short sales short shrift, according to the latest reports on the distressed sales market.
Investor Purchases Soar 65 Percent
By: editor; Fri, Mar 30, 2012
Investors bought 1.23 million homes last year, accounting for 27 percent of all existing homes bought in America, the greatest annual market share for investors ever recorded.
Property Management Challenges Investors
By: Steve Cook; Fri, Feb 24, 2012
Only two out of ten of the nation's 8.7 million single family rental properties are managed by professionals; individual owner/ investors take care of most of the rest. Last year only about a third of single family rentals, 35 percent, made a profit on their rental income. Some 2.3 million lost money for their owners.
Poor Homes Have Lost More Value than Rich Ones
By: Steve Cook; Wed, Dec 21, 2011
In the five years since the market peaked in 2006, homes in the bottom quarter of the market have lost more value proportionately than those in the top tier.
Do REO Sales Threaten Homeownership?
By: Steve Cook; Wed, Dec 7, 2011
During the boom, the only way first-time buyers, minorities and working families could afford to buy a home was through subprime and creative financing. Now that homeownership is affordable, new barriers to financing and competition with investors are locking them out of homeownership and changing the residential fabric of our communities from ownership to rental.
Investor Sales Surge
By: Steve Cook; Tue, Nov 22, 2011
Low home prices and strong demand for rental properties are causing a surge in investor buying, driving up the market share of homes purchased by investors.
Rising Rents Improve Investors’ Returns
By: editor; Wed, Oct 19, 2011
With rents rising faster than last year, the picture for residential real estate investors is getting even better than it already was as a result of once-in-a-generation prices and low interest rates, according to the founder of the leading Internet platform for investors and real estate professional.
Boomers are Betting on Real Estate
By: Steve Cook; Wed, Oct 12, 2011
Even though the real estate depression has delayed many from moving ahead with plans to sell the family home, baby boomers are a red hot market for investment properties.
Investors Can’t Resell
Anemic demand from owner-occupant homebuyers has forced investors to rent out about half of the homes they purchase -- as opposed to renovating and flipping the properties.
REOs Extend Foreclosure Pain
By: Steve Cook; Fri, Aug 12, 2011
Bank-owned foreclosures (REOs) are taking significantly longer to sell than foreclosures bought and resold by investors, extending the timeline for REO foreclosures even longer than the extraordinary delays for resulting from slower processing.
Investors are Bearish on Next 12 Months
By: Steve Cook; Thu, May 26, 2011
Real estate investors are slightly more bearish than the general public about the outlook for prices in their local markets over the next six to 12 months.
Bargains Beckon Canadians South
By: Steve Cook; Fri, Mar 25, 2011
Lower prices and the strong Canadian dollar are encouraging one in five Canadians to buy U.S. property today, according to a new survey of by the Bank of Montreal.
Investors Dominate Distress Sales
By: Steve Cook; Mon, Mar 21, 2011
Investor activity dominated a sluggish distress sale market in February as homebuyers are increasingly frustrated by difficulties getting financing, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey.
Cash Deals Break the Bank
By: Steve Cook; Fri, Mar 4, 2011
All-cash home sales are setting records in market after market around the country as investors account for a growing share of home purchases and individual buyers, especially first-time buyers, fade as mortgage rates rise and home buyer demand softens further.
Poor Condition of REOs Depresses Home Values
By: Steve Cook; Fri, Dec 10, 2010
The quality, as well as the quantity, of many bank-owned properties in the REO inventory is creating a drag on home values because they are difficult to sell in today's market, Scott Sambucci, vice president of Altos Research, said yesterday in a Webinar for investors.
Prices Fall on Move-in Properties, Rise on Fixer-uppers
By: Steve Cook; Tue, Jul 27, 2010
Prices on homes ready to be occupied fell an average of 6.8 percent between May and June, but prices for damaged foreclosed properties increased by 5.9 percent during the same period.
Falling Home Prices Ignite Boom in Foreign Buyers
By: Steve Cook; Mon, Jul 19, 2010
The number of American homes bought by foreign nationals has nearly doubled in the past year as falling property values and record numbers of distress sales encouraged immigrants and foreign investors to take advantage of affordable prices. With home purchases by US citizens plummeting in the wake of the tax credit, foreigners are now poised to gain an even larger ownership share of the US residential market.
Broker Price Opinions are Focus of Short Sale Fraud
By: Steve Cook; Fri, Jun 11, 2010
Banks using real estate brokers and agents to value short sales are increasingly becoming the victims of fraudulent schemes that have occurred in more than 1 percent of short sales this year and have already cost lenders at least $50 million in lost revenue, according to CoreLogic.
Rising Rents Rally Investors
By: Steve Cook; Thu, Apr 22, 2010
Investors are back in the housing markets, driven by affordable prices, abundant foreclosures, low interest rates and now... rising rents.
Bargains Get Tougher for Investors
By: Steve Cook; Wed, Dec 16, 2009
Recent industry studies suggest factors are at work that will make bargains harder to find and profit margins slimmer.
Low Priced Foreclosures and High Hopes for Appreciation Draw Investors Back to Real Estate
By: Steve Cook; Thu, Nov 12, 2009
The number of consumers interested in investing in real estate has doubled since March 2009.
Wall Street Wonders About Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
By: Steve Cook; Mon, Aug 10, 2009
Suddenly Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are behaving like Wall Street Wonders instead of government-run utilities with massive debt and virtually no prospect of ever again operating like private entities.
S&P Turns Negative on Apartment REIT Sector
By: Steve Cook; Tue, Mar 24, 2009
S&P Equity Research recently lowered its fundamental outlook for the residential (apartment) REIT sector to negative from neutral based on the excess supply of vacant houses being rented out.
Commercial Real Estate Headed for Downturn
By: David Lereah; Tue, Jan 13, 2009
Commercial real estate is finally joining the party. Even though there has been no meaningful overbuilding in commercial real estate, the outlook for the industry has seriously dimmed. The retail and office sectors have turned down with vacancies rising. And the industrial sector is not far behind. A tightened credit market and a slumping economy are to blame.
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