Last year investor purchases rose for the first time in four years despite soaring prices paid by investors to acquire properties for flipping or converting into single family rentals. Investment-home sales in 2015 jumped 7.0 percent to an estimated 1.09 million from 1.02 million in 2014. The median investment-home sales price was $143,500, up 15.3 percent from $124,500 a year … Read More »

  What would an influx of 3.8 million entry-level homes do for housing affordability? Limited inventory and strong demand continue to push home prices higher in America’s hottest housing markets, leading to declining affordability.  Forecasters are raising their predictions as tight inventories of homes, particularly lower priced properties, keep first-time buyers on the sidelines. Those 3.8 million homes, nearly twice … Read More »

For the business of residential real estate investing, these are not the best of times.  Bargains on attractive properties to flip or to hold and convert to rentals are tough to find.  Foreclosures and short sales have fallen to ten percent of home sales, the lowest level in four years, according to RealtyTrac.  Moreover, NAR reports the foreclosure discount has shrunk … Read More »

Investors have to hunt harder for well-priced acquisitions these days but the best rents can be found in the nation’s top  for-sale markets, according to new quarterly data from HomeVestors and Local Market Monitor.  “For the last few years, investors have been able to find real estate bargains they could turn into rental properties. That period is pretty much over … Read More »

he average gross profit — the difference between the purchase price and the flipped price — for completed flips in the first quarter was $72,450, up from $65,290 in the previous quarter and up from $61,684 in the first quarter of 2014 to the highest level going back to the first quarter of 2011, the earliest where data is available, … Read More »

  Vacation Home Sales Soar to Record High in 2014, Investment Purchases Fall or Homes Sold to Owner-Occupants Drops to New Low in First Quarter, Smaller Investors Picking Up Slack Time for a quiz.  Which headline do YOU think is right?  The first, the second, both or neither? The right answer is that you should never believe a real estate … Read More »

Don’t tell the HGTV producers who find audiences for their endless stream of shows devoted to house flipping, but it’s looking like flipping is losing popularity. RealtyTrac® reports that last year flips fell to their lowest market share since 2011.  Some 136,269 U.S. single family homes were flipped in 2014, 5.4 percent of all single family home sales during the … Read More »

A number of familiar former foreclosure hotbeds top RealtyTrac’s list of best markets to buy a rental property in the first quarter of 2015.  They’ve got the right mix of employment, growth, prices and potential return. The report also looks at which markets are seeing the biggest increases in rental rates in 2015 compared to 2014, and provides rankings of … Read More »

Flipping has flopped to its lowest level since the second quarter of 2009, accounting for only 4 percent of all sales in the third quarter. Only 26,947 single family homes were flipped nationwide in the third quarter of 2014 representing 4 percent of all U.S. single family home sales, down from 4.6 percent in the second quarter of 2014 and … Read More »

While most homebuyers are focused on rising home prices, closing costs are rising nearly as quickly over the past three years, increasing by more than 20 percent since 2010, according to Bankrate.com Mortgage closing costs rose 6 percent over 2013 after rising 6 percent in 2012 and 8.8 percent in 2011 The now average $2,539 on a $200,000 loan. Each … Read More »