Big institutional investors — companies that have purchased at least 10 properties in a calendar year — accounted for 5.9 percent of all U.S. residential property sales in February, up from a revised 5.0 percent of sales in January but down from 7.2 percent of sales in February 2013. February was the third consecutive month where the institutional investor share … Read More »

  It’s getting tough to find an apartment for $1000 or less a month in any major market these days according to a new survey from Apartments.com/ Apartments.com recently analyzed data from the top 100 most searched markets on its website to compare the vast variety of apartments available for around $1,000 a month in cities across the country. The … Read More »

Consumer expectations on home prices rose unexpectedly in February, just in time to build seller confidence to list their houses and restore tight inventories for the fast approaching spring season. Fannie Mae’s February 2014 National Housing Survey took a right turn from January’s results as respondents’ home price expectations climbed significantly  – with 50 percent saying home prices will go … Read More »

Though experts predict investors will be buying fewer residential properties in 2014 (see Experts Raise Price Forecast for 2014, they ended 2013 on a roll. The latest survey of Realtors by the research staff at the National Association of Realtors found that the investor market share topped 21 percent in December, about the same level as during the glory days … Read More »

Higher prices and fewer foreclosures have not put a dent in the flipping business.  In fact, last year saw 156,862 single family home flips — where a home is purchased and subsequently sold again within six months — in 2013, up 16 percent from 2012 and up 114 percent from 2011, according to RealtyTrac’s Year-End and Q4 2013 Home Flipping … Read More »

  Just to prove that they are not quite ready for the history books, sales of foreclosures and short sales increased slightly last year.  Institutions bought 7.9 percent of all homes. RealtyTrac reported that short sales and foreclosure-related sales — including both sales to third party buyers at the public foreclosure auction and sales of bank-owned properties — accounted for … Read More »

Hedge funds and other large investors do much better by buying up rentals in higher rather than lower income neighborhoods, according to a new report sponsored by RealtyTrac. The preference for pricey may be contributing to the deterioration and loss of low-cost rental housing, labeled grave concerns by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. Read More »

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have increased the period that they are locking investors out of their listings of REOs from 15 to 20 days in most of the nation, and 30 days in Nevada in order to give owner-occupants interested in making an offer a head start over investors. Read More »

Real estate investors large and small have helped clear foreclosure inventories, supported prices in ailing markets and renovated sizable portions of the nation’s housing stock. However, if their share of the housing stock or debt financing grows, they could pose significant risk to the nation’s financial stability, a new study by two Federal Reserve economists concludes in what is believed be the first study exist on the effect of single-family-real-estate business investor activity on housing markets or other outcomes. Read More »

Institutional investor purchases in October were lower than a year ago and represented only 6.8 percent of all home sales in October, a sharp drop from a revised 12.1 percent in September and down from 9.7 percent in October 2012. Read More »