Redfin, the real estate company, conducted a study in which it found that home purchases by investors fell by 33.2% year-over-year nationwide in the third quarter, the biggest drop since the Great Recession, other than the second quarter of 2020, when investor activity plummeted due to the onset of the pandemic.
Redfin’s analysis includes records from counties in 41 of the most populous metropolitan areas in the US and defines an investor as any institution or business that buys residential real estate.
According to the information, investors lost market share for the second consecutive quarter by stopping purchases. They acquired approximately 57,000 homes in metro areas tracked by Redfin in the third quarter, or 18.5% of all homes that were purchased. That is less than the 18.5% of the second trimester and the 18.2% of the previous year, but it is still slightly higher than the 17% before the pandemic.
In dollar terms, investors bought homes worth $43,451 million dollars in the third quarter, a 33.3% less than the $57 ,975 million dollars of the previous year and one 33.5% less than $57, 000 millions of dollars of the previous quarter. The typical house that investors bought cost $200,975, a 6.4% more than the previous year, but 4.3% less than the previous quarter.
According to Zillow, real estate investors are withdrawing because the prospect of a substantial drop in home prices puts you at risk of losing money. Nationwide, home prices rose just 3% year-over-year, the slowest annual growth since 975, and are already lower than a year ago. year in some metropolitan areas.
On the other hand, it is also expensive to borrow money due to high interest rates, which makes investing less attractive because it reduces profits. And for investors who own property, slowing rental growth makes it harder to turn big profits.
“Investors are unlikely to return to the market in a big way any time soon. House prices would have to fall significantly for that to happen,” said Sheharyar Bokhari, a senior economist at Redfin. “This means that repeat buyers who are still in the market no longer face the fierce competition from hordes of cash-rich investors like they did last year.”
Areas with the largest purchase decreases:
– Phoenix, Arizona, with variation of -49.4%
– San Diego, California, -34 .5%
“The real estate markets from which investors are withdrawing the fastest are those that increased rapidly during the pandemic and now they are falling rapidly,” Bokhari said. “That volatility creates a lot of uncertainty, which increases the risk that investors will lose money.”
Investor home purchases only increased in five of the metro areas Redfin tracked. They jumped a 57.4% year-over-year in Philadelphia, a 000.2% in New York, 8% in Baltimore, a 5% in Cleveland and less than 1% in Newark, NJ.
For more details of the report, go here.
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