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Is Investing in Housing a Losing Proposition?
Last week two Federal Reserve researchers answered that question with an analysis of returns on investment since 1926 and their findings won't make the housing industry happy.
Investors Cautioned On Hottest Markets
In some markets--many of them in California--the home price rebound has pushed prices above their EHP level, which should be a caution sign for investors seeking to make money in a quick re-sale, according to the latest HomeVestor/Local Market Monitor Best Market Ratings for investors.
Investors Plan to Reduce Purchases
Real estate investors are responding to higher prices by buying fewer properties in the next 12 months and holding their rental properties at least five years or longer, according to a national survey of real estate investors conducted by ORC International for MemphisInvest.com and Premier Property Management Group.
Soaring Prices Slow Hedge Funds
By: Steve Cook; Sun, Jun 2, 2013
Boasting of spending up to $8 billion dollars to buy tens of thousands of foreclosures to convert into single family rentals, nearly 50 Wall Street investment firms set real estate markets on fire over the past 18 months. Now they are running for cover as soaring prices water down their return on investment.
Investors No Longer in the Driver’s Seat
By: Steve Cook; Thu, Apr 25, 2013
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.
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.
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.
Michigan, Florida Markets Top List of Most Dangerous for Investors
By: editor; Thu, Mar 14, 2013
Thirty-eight real estate markets have been tagged as "dangerous" for investors looking to make money on buying homes as rental properties in new quarterly data compiled by HomeVestors of America (known as the "We Buy Ugly Houses®" company) and Local Market Monitor.
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.
State Laws will Extend Foreclosure Pain by 30 Months or More
By: Steve Cook; Thu, Mar 7, 2013
The 23 states that require court orders to foreclose and other states that have enacted legislation that delays foreclosure processing will take twice as long as the rest of the nation to clear backlogged foreclosure inventories at their current rate.
Foreclosure Discounts are All Over the Map
By: Steve Cook; Mon, Mar 4, 2013
The low prices that make foreclosures attractive to investors also make foreclosures toxic to communities and homeowners. The discount between "normal" priced homes and the prices paid for properties than have been through the foreclosure process can spell the difference between profit and loss to an investor at the same time that they drive real estate values into the ground.
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.
Florida Markets Still the Best Places to Buy Foreclosures
By: editor; Thu, Jan 31, 2013
Hot foreclosure markets have come and gone over the past seven years but one thing seems to stay the same. The markets with the most and the cheapest foreclosures are still located in Florida.
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.
Short Sales Overtook REO Sales in Q3
For the first time ever, sales of properties in some stage of foreclosure (largely short sales) outnumbered sales of bank-owned properties (REO) in the third quarter, as short sales continue to gain market share at the expense of REO and sales of completed foreclosures at auction.
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.
Competition Drives Down Foreclosure Discounts
By: editor; Fri, Nov 9, 2012
The national average discount on foreclosures has shrunk by 1.4 percentage points over the past year as competition for foreclosures as inventories tighten is driving prices closer to full-price properties.
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.
Foreclosure Price Surge Greatest in Six Years
By: Steve Cook; Sun, Sep 2, 2012
The average foreclosure-related sales price in the second quarter ($170,040) soared 6 percent from the first quarter of the year and was up 7 percent from the second quarter of 2011 - the first annual increase in average price since Q2 2010 and the biggest annual increase since Q4 2006.
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.
“Ugly Houses” are Looking Good
By: Steve Cook; Tue, Jul 24, 2012
With growing demand and record shortages of entry-level properties sweeping the nation, the company famous for buying "ugly houses" is sitting pretty.
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) .
Improving Foreclosure Prices Drive Recovery
By: Steve Cook; Tue, Jun 5, 2012
Significant price increases in bank-owned foreclosures are driving gains at the national, regional and local levels, helping home prices turn the corner with small quarterly and yearly gains.
Fitch Sees No Bottom Until Late Next Year
Fitch Ratings" outlook for U.S. residential real estate prices has improved slightly in recent months, but the authoritative ratings service still sees no bottom to declining housing prices until late 2013.
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.
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.
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.
Soaring Prices Suggest a Florida Phenomenon
By: Steve Cook; Sat, Sep 17, 2011
According to the latest data from Realtor.com, the world's largest real estate site, Florida single family home and condo prices are zooming at the same time that the rest of the nation is still recovering from the first quarter's double dip.
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.
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.
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.
2011 Outlook: Stars Align for Buyers with Low Rates and Prices
By: Steve Cook; Tue, Dec 7, 2010
Interest rates below 5 percent and prices bottoming out in the first half of the year will drive two of the three main ingredients for buyer affordability to cyclic lows next year, Freddie Mac's chief economist said yesterday.
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.
Auctions Bid for Seventh Record Year
By: Steve Cook; Tue, Nov 10, 2009
Gross revenue from residential real estate auctions have skyrocketed 49 percent over the past six years, an increase of $5.6 billion.
Micro Markets Shine in Gloomy Times
By: Steve Cook; Wed, Jun 10, 2009
These days, it’s hard to find much to cheer about in the Case-Shiller top twenty or NAR’s quarterly metro market report. Yet far beneath the radar of the national or MSA level data, some folks are smiling.
The Last Great No-Down Loan
By: Steve Cook; Thu, Jun 4, 2009
Thought no-down payment mortgages were a thing of the past?
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- Is Investing in Housing a Losing Proposition?
- Mortgage Originations Fell 6.2 Percent in Q1
- Built-for-Rent now Five Percent of New Home Construction
- List Prices Flatten Despite Sinking Inventory
By: Steve Cook; Mon, Jun 17, 2013
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