Investors Snapping up Single Family Homes Across U.S. — $49.9B in Last 3 Months of 2021

The real estate market is still in the throes of coronavirus-pandemic challenges, including supply chain issues. And now reports show that investors snapping up record amounts of single family homes is making it even more difficult for people shopping for a home.

In the last three months of 2021, investors spent $49.9 billion on buying homes, according to a report in The Business Journals:

In total, investors — which includes anyone from so-called mom-and-pop, part-time landlords to private equity giants — made up a full 18.4 percent  of home sales in the fourth quarter, which is a record, according to Seattle-based Redfin Corp. Though not solely responsible for today’s ultra-competitive housing market, the growing dominance of cash-heavy investors in Q4 is making buying a house more challenging.

Billions have been raised to deploy into the single-family rental market — and related, but somewhat different, the build-to-rent business — but it’s not clear yet whether investors will keep seeing quarter-over-quarter gains in market share in 2022, said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin. There are a lot of variables at play, especially with the Federal Reserve expected to raise interest rates this year.

“That will cool down demand for housing,” Fairweather said. “At the same time, rents are going up, which makes it attractive for investors to buy houses (to rent).”- READ MORE