According to an Aug. 30 report from Redfin, investor home purchases fell 45% in the second quarter compared to a year earlier. Redfin’s report covered 39 of the most populated U.S. metro areas. The decline outpaced a 31% drop in overall home sales and marked the fewest investor home purchases of any second quarter in seven years. Other data sources that track the homebuying market are also finding a decline in investment activity. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) found about 11% of transactions in the past three months have been by investors, although most of the investor transactions tracked by NAR are likely mom-and-pop investors, said Jessica Lautz, deputy chief economist and vice president of research at NAR. The highest share of non-primary residence buyers was 22% of the market in January 2022, according to NAR, and that number included people purchasing vacation homes. Home-flipping, a subset of the broader investor market, is also seeing a decline within the U.S. housing market. Attom Data Solutions LLC reports that home flip transactions made up 8% of all sales in the second quarter — still higher than the average of the past decade but the first quarterly decline in a year. Read more here.
Source: Philadelphia Business Journal; 9/25/2023