A recent article by the Wall Street Journal (reposted on Realtor.com) points out that the investor share of home purchases has climbed to an all-time high, indicating that rising home prices have not hurt demand for turning them into SFRs or flipping. Citing data from CoreLogic, they said 11% were purchased by big private-equity firms, real-estate speculators and others that buy properties. However, when it comes to the bottom third price range, investors purchased one in five homes – which is up 5 percentage points from the 20-year average of less than 15%.
“These are the homes that first-time home buyers would logically be buying,” said Ralph McLaughlin, deputy chief economist at CoreLogic.
