If the housing demand was in a particular segment, I'd be more concerned as economic factors would impact it more.

A little bit of cooling in some segments of the market with buyer activity but prices are not dipping.

Same goes with any segment of REI that you are interested in.

@Josephine Wilson I admittedly have not read all of the pages of this post but what I did read had not mentioned an important segment and driver to answer your question of who is buying at these levels: fund investors. 

Love the idea of house hacking in an A neighborhood, a good way to build that segment of your portfolio!

It has a segment of the population that has strong ties in the state, it also has a  strong student rental market in some areas.

I have great contacts in the multi family insurance segment but I haven’t done a SFR deal in Birmingham of this type.

It's hard to stand out.There are some owner-occupied segments with people who share motivating factors for selling their home.Seniors with Long-time Ownership: often ready to downsize or transition to assistance.Homeowners with Low Financial Stability Scores (FSS): Struggling financially and likely ready to cash in on their asset.Both these categories have additional advantages in that they probably don’t haven’t been updated and may have deferred maintenance.

I was able to watch segments from last year’s MEREDA conference and they were good in terms of giving a detailed idea about the different market trends.

Now without GSA financing the only players left will be cash buyers in very specific VR friendly locations OR a very small segment using non GSA financing to buy small to large multifamily and doing VR in that small space.