Real Estate Investors Have Sped the U.S. Housing Recovery

[Corey Dutton]

Real estate investment has been a huge driver behind the housing recovery, at least according to RealtyTrac. Darin Blomquist of RealtyTrac,

“The housing market recovery continued to be driven by investors and other cash purchasers in November. Lenders are taking advantage of this environment to unload more of their bank owned inventory and in-foreclosure inventory at the foreclosure auction.”

I entirely agree with RealtyTrac and think the housing recovery wouldn't have happened so quickly had real estate investors not moved so much inventory down the river. Just the FDIC auctions, for example, were able to get large "tapes" of properties shoveled off to real estate investors buying with a combination of cash and hard money loans. The availability of private money loans and other forms of fast cash allowed the buyers of these assets to take advantage of unique and fleeting opportunities.

We didn’t see a massive amount of requests for financing for last minute bank liquidations in December as we expected. Not sure if some banks decided to hold off on last minute liquidations, or if backlog just kept a steady flow of inventory trickling out in November and December. Either way, I think a steady trickle of inventory will likely continue to come from banks through 2014, as the market continues to recover. Never seen reports on RealtyTrac? Check out their ‘stats and trends’ here: http://www.realtytrac.com/statsandtrends

Posted by Corey Curwick Dutton