The Wall Street Journal
Are real-estate investors starting to run out of gas? Single-family home investors, whose mostly cash purchases played a central role in healing the U.S. housing market, have started to slow down their buying, according to several surveys.
Investors accounted for 20.2% of home purchases in May—still high by historical standards, but down from a peak of 23.1% reached in February, according to the Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance survey of real estate conditions. A separate survey conducted for MemphisInvest.com and Premier Property Management Group found that investors planned to slow their home purchases in the next year.
Several peripheral indicators as well as some individual market data suggest waning investor interest as well. In May there were fewer offers for distressed homes like foreclosures and short sales, which are favored by investors. Those properties stayed on the market for longer than in the month before and closed further below the asking price, according to the Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance.
