RealtyTrac Notes Institutional Investors Have Purchased Half a Million Homes in Four Years; 8 Percent of Cash Buyers in Last Two Years Financed Home After Purchase;

  

Mike Pappas

IRVINE, CA, Feb. 20, 2015 — RealtyTrac® (www.realtytrac.com), the nation’s leading source for comprehensive housing data, today released its Q4 and Year-End 2014 U.S. Institutional Investor & Cash Sales Report, which shows that the share of home sales to institutional investors and all-cash buyers dropped to four-year lows in 2014 despite a quarterly increase in the fourth quarter.

A total of 105,278 single family homes were sold to institutional investors — entities that purchase at least 10 properties in a calendar year — in 2014, 4.2 percent of all sales and down 31 percent from the 153,450 institutional investor purchases in 2013 to a four-year low. Meanwhile overall sales of single family homes decreased 2 percent between 2013 and 2014.

In the past four years, institutional investors have purchased a total of 528,369 single family homes nationwide, led by Florida (78,155), California (52,802), Georgia (46,914), Arizona (35,979), and North Carolina (34,769).

Wesley M. Hardin

Institutional investor purchases represented 3.7 percent of all single family home sales in the fourth quarter, up from 3.5 percent of sales in the third quarter but still below the 5.4 percent of all sales in the fourth quarter of 2013.

“While the overall percentage of purchases by institutional investors is nothing to write home about nationwide, the true impact of these investors can be seen more clearly at the hyperlocal level,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.

 “There were 35 zip codes nationwide where at least 50 single family homes were purchased by institutional investors in the fourth quarter, with institutional investor purchases representing from 17 percent to 74 percent of all single family home sales in those zip codes.”

“With our limited land and growing population the institutional investors believe our region will outperform the U.S. market,” said Mike Pappas, CEO and president of the Keyes Company, covering the South Florida market, where institutional investors accounted for 21 percent of all single family purchases in zip code 33023 in Hollywood, Florida, in the fourth quarter.

Daren Blomquist

“We are seeing a fair amount of deals in the area as this institutional investor money is really becoming a player,” said Wesley M. Hardin, owner/broker at RE/MAX Alliance, covering the Denver market, which saw an uptick in institutional investors in the fourth quarter.

 “In fact, I closed a deal this past Wednesday from a REIT back east. They sent the offer without seeing the home and closed in about 10 days. The title company told me this was their 256th purchase in the metro area in the last 12 months.”

For a complete copy of the company’s news release, please contact:

  Jennifer von Pohlmann

  Sr. Data PR Manager

  Office: 949.502.8300 ext 139

  jennifer.vonpohlmann@realtytrac.com