Investors Buy Up Homes in Bulk

Investors aren’t just wanting one home, they may want a dozen.

“As the greatest real estate fire sale in the history of the United States rages on, the bulk buy is the dead hot deal of the moment,” Reuters News reports. “In some of the most foreclosure-ravaged parts of the country, it is almost as if the housing market has become the new big box store, with investors wiping out whole shelves at a time.”

Investors are look to cash in by snagging homes at rock-bottom prices and then renting them out. In many cases, they’re starting to make a profit instantly and are seeing higher returns than other investments nowadays.

"They aren't just buying one rental property. This is a frenzy. They are loading up," Kyra Pych, a real estate professional in Oak Park, Illinois, told Reuters. In Pych’s market, investors are being drawn to condos that were once selling for $180,000 during the housing boom that are now going for $13,500.

In Detroit, investors are snagging bungalows as low as $500 each.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett recently told CNBC that he would like to “buy up a couple hundred thousand” single-family homes, adding that it is a "very attractive asset class now."

Source: “Investors Buying homes by the Dozen,” Reuters News (March 2, 2012)