“Last year, the amount of institutional investors activity exploded. What you’re seeing now is the natural digestion of that exponential growth. That means maybe a slowdown in how many home they acquire, it may mean letting go employees in areas where it doesn’t make sense.”

These investors are moving their focus from acquisition to profitability, hoping to show Wall Street that the business model is not only feasible but highly profitable. The American Home now boasts 2,500 homes in Atlanta; Nashville, Tenn.; Orlando and Tampa, Fla.; and Charlotte, N.C.

Edelheit said rental demand is tremendous, and management is working well, but the model is still too green for the larger investment community. “You look at the stock prices of the companies that are public, and it’s pretty clear that Wall Street remains unconvinced in the single family rental model, and I think it’s natural for these firms to start right sizing and make sure that they are profitable.”

That could mean consolidation, with some of the larger firms that have stronger management structures buying up smaller players. Large-scale investors are still a relatively small segment of the 14 million single family rental market, but it appears they are here to stay, despite the recent volatility. Smaller investors, however, may be moving on, having exhausted their cash and their credit opportunities.

(Read more: Home prices across the US defy gravity)

Last spring, Redfin was running seminars for small “armchair” investors on how to buy and manage single family rentals. The classrooms were packed.

“There was a surge because people read the papers—in March, April, there was a bull market in housing. Suddenly at every cocktail party somebody wanted to make a killing in real estate,” Kelman said. “Some wanted to ride the wave, but some just caught it late.”

—By CNBC’s Diana Olick. Follow her on Twitter @Diana_Olick.

Questions?Comments? facebook.com/DianaOlickCNBC

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100988740

Buying ain’t easy. First prices soar, then they slow down, but rising interest rates make up the difference.

Blanca Torres
Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

Email
 | Twitter
 | Google+
 | LinkedIn

The rapid rise of home prices may be slowing, but too bad interest rates are now creeping up.

In the Bay Area, home prices are still growing, but not as fast, according to Trulia, the San Francisco-based online real estate marketplace.

The firm found that while home prices jumped 17.2 percent in the month of July compared with July 2012, price growth slowed down during the last six months. From January to March, prices rose by 6.5 percent and from April to June, they went up 3 percent.

“The biggest price slowdowns have come to some of the hottest local markets,” said Jed Kolko, Trulia’s chief economist. “California and Nevada remain the Wild West for asking home prices, with some of the sharpest drops during the bust, strongest rebounds over the past year, and now biggest slowdowns in the past quarter.”

Nationwide, asking home prices dropped slightly— 0.3 percent — in July compared with the previous month. It’s the first time since November 2012 that prices didn’t go up.

They are still up 11 percent for the month of July compared with the same month last year.

One major factor deflating home prices is rising interest rates during the past six months.

In the past couple of years, historically low interest rates boosted sales and skyrocketing price growth, but higher rates are now dampening the mood.

“Asking home prices are now starting to lose steam as mortgage rates rise, inventory expands and investor demand declines,” said Trulia in a recent market report.

A year ago, a buyer could afford to pay a higher asking price because interest rates were low. Now, buyers may end up paying the same per month, but more of their payment will go toward interest versus the principal value on the loan.

So even if prices level off or go down in the months to come, buying a home in the Bay Area will still be just as costly if not more.

Blanca Torres covers East Bay real estate for the San Francisco Business Times.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2013/08/bay-area-home-price-growth-leveling-off.html

“Despite multi-billion dollar buying sprees by well-funded Wall Street hedge funds, real estate investors bought fewer properties in 2012 than they did in 2011, which was a record year for investors. Investment-home sales declined 2.1 percent to 1.21 million from 1.23 million in 2011, but those sales had been well under a million during the market downturn,” according to a new survey from the National Association of Realtors.

Meanwhile, previously surging single family rents are flattening. Nearly 4 million more single-family homes have been added to the rental market since 2005, according to Trulia.com. Supply has finally caught up with demand, with single family rents up just 0.1 percent in March from a year ago. That has housing bears roaring again.

(Read More: Deep Freeze: Home Sales Barely Budge in Spring)

“In Phoenix—like Las Vegas, Florida, the Inland Empire, Central Valley et al—we now have a rental supply glut,” said Mark Hanson, a California-based housing and mortgage analyst.

“Wherever the institutional money has gone in and ravaged is high risk for housing investment or building. These regions have become highly volatile speculative regions in which prices can rise 20 percent one year and fall 15 percent the next. The insti’s have turned these markets into something I have never seen before…more like high-beta, speculative, volatile tech stock markets than housing markets.”

Prices are soaring in these markets because all-cash investors are finding very little left to buy. Regular buyers can’t compete with investors, so they are heading to the home builders. The builders were caught off guard, because they did not foresee this dynamic. Now they are rushing back to meet demand, while having no idea how long that demand will last. Why? Because when home prices get high enough, investors could cash out, pushing inventories higher and prices lower.

The birth of the new asset class, the REO (bank owned foreclosures) to Rent model, put a floor on home prices and reduced distress dramatically in the market. It also, however, added a new volatility to housing for years to come.

If investors hold and rent the homes, recovery will continue apace, but if sentiment shifts, and investors see bigger returns in sales than rents, the game could turn quickly.

RealtyCheck producer Stephanie Dhue contributed to this report.

—By CNBC’s Diana Olick; Follow her on Twitter @Diana_Olick or on Facebook at facebook.com/DianaOlickCNBC

Questions? Comments? RealtyCheck@cnbc.com

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100627586

“Market prices have to go higher to provide incentives for more new houses to be built,” said Aaron Edelheit, CEO of Atlanta-based The American Home, a company that invests in distressed properties and turns them into rentals. “I believe we are on the cusp of a massive housing shortage in many parts of the country due to the historic lack of residential investment in the last five years. This summer, I expect the housing market to be ‘blue flame’ hot.”

(Read More: What Tops Home Buyers’ Wish List Now)

Prices today are rising fast because supplies of homes for sale are so low. Both new and existing homes are running near four month supplies.

For new homes, builders just aren’t able to start fast enough, due to labor and land restraints.

For existing homes, there are fewer distressed properties for sale, a segment that has driven the market into recovery, and organic homeowners are either unwilling to list their homes for fear of selling at the bottom, or unable to list because they are still underwater on their mortgages.

(Read More: Foreclosures Fall Due to New Laws)

“Taking new and existing homes together, the relationship between the months’ supply of unsold homes and house prices points to an acceleration in the pace of house prices gains in the year ahead,” said Paul Diggle of Capital Economics.

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100496564

Renter household formation remains at the strongest level in decades. Roughly 1.32 million new renter households were formed in the past year (including owner conversions), while the number of owner-occupied households declined by 175,000. Resident turnover and move-outs to homeownership remain near historic lows for most operators. Incoming leasing traffic is more than offsetting move-outs while paying higher rates.

The home ownership rate declined yet again in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to a new report from the U.S. Census today. It now stands at 65.4 percent, down from 66 percent a year ago and from a high of 69.2 percent in 2004. If you include the 5.3 million borrowers who are delinquent on their mortgages or in the foreclosure process, per Lender Processing Services, the real home ownership rate is even lower.

“The fact that the housing recovery is being driven principally by investor demand means that the slight decline in the homeownership rate in the fourth quarter is unlikely to be the last,” notes Paul Diggle of Capital Economics.

(Read More: World’s Most Expensive City to Rent Is…)

There is also a tremendous amount of pent-up demand for the rental market, as nearly 23 million young adults, male and female, under age 35 (31 percent of the cohort) are currently classified as ‘living at home’ with parents, according to Raymond James’ analysis. As job growth improves, they will move to rental apartments; the homeownership rate for this group is only 34 percent.

(Read More: Rentals Chip Away at Home Builder Gains)

Investors are also concerned about a 49 percent jump in multi-family construction permits from a year ago, but those permits are still running well below normal levels, and every year about 150,000 units are removed from housing stock for various reasons, like age and damage.

Suffice it to say that the apartment sector and the multi-family REITs will likely see a surprise to the upside in 2013. Rents will still rise, despite housing affordability and growth in the single family market.

(Read More: Real-Estate Tips from a Mega-Broker to the Stars)

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100416547

(Read More: Is the Refi ‘Apocalypse’ Really Upon Us?)

Analysts at Clear Capital, which runs a four-month moving average price index, note that January’s numbers show, “momentum stalls.” While they blame this on seasonal slowdowns, they point to Florida as a concern.

“Florida metros, namely Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville, were all missing from the top 15 performing market list. Since September 2011, at least one of these markets made the list,” cautions Dr. Alex Villacorta, Director of Research and Analytics at Clear Capital. “While this isn’t confirmation that the recovery is finished in the sunshine state, it’s certainly something to keep an eye on. These markets led the recovery in late 2011, and share some of the hallmarks for recovering markets overall.”

Florida’s housing market has been driven by distressed homes, and investors buying them at a rapid pace.

Other markets that saw the most distress during the housing crash, like Phoenix, Las Vegas, and much of California, have also seen so much investor demand, that prices are up by double digits from a year ago.

(Read More: New Housing Fears: Home Prices Rising Too Fast?)

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100435276

Renter household formation remains at the strongest level in decades. Roughly 1.32 million new renter households were formed in the past year (including owner conversions), while the number of owner-occupied households declined by 175,000. Resident turnover and move-outs to homeownership remain near historic lows for most operators. Incoming leasing traffic is more than offsetting move-outs while paying higher rates.

The home ownership rate declined yet again in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to a new report from the U.S. Census today. It now stands at 65.4 percent, down from 66 percent a year ago and from a high of 69.2 percent in 2004. If you include the 5.3 million borrowers who are delinquent on their mortgages or in the foreclosure process, per Lender Processing Services, the real home ownership rate is even lower.

“The fact that the housing recovery is being driven principally by investor demand means that the slight decline in the homeownership rate in the fourth quarter is unlikely to be the last,” notes Paul Diggle of Capital Economics.

(Read More: World’s Most Expensive City to Rent Is…)

There is also a tremendous amount of pent-up demand for the rental market, as nearly 23 million young adults, male and female, under age 35 (31 percent of the cohort) are currently classified as ‘living at home’ with parents, according to Raymond James’ analysis. As job growth improves, they will move to rental apartments; the homeownership rate for this group is only 34 percent.

(Read More: Rentals Chip Away at Home Builder Gains)

Investors are also concerned about a 49 percent jump in multi-family construction permits from a year ago, but those permits are still running well below normal levels, and every year about 150,000 units are removed from housing stock for various reasons, like age and damage.

Suffice it to say that the apartment sector and the multi-family REITs will likely see a surprise to the upside in 2013. Rents will still rise, despite housing affordability and growth in the single family market.

(Read More: Real-Estate Tips from a Mega-Broker to the Stars)

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100416547

Foreclosure activity nationwide has now fallen for 26 straight months on an annual basis, according to RealtyTrac, but the large overhang of distress keeps that drop in perspective.

(Read More: Mortgage Break No Longer Sacred)

“While this metric continues being a mild positive for the builders, we do not see it as a meaningful equity driver, but instead, just as another positive data point in the early stages of the housing recovery,” writes ISI’s Stephen East, who also notes that newly started foreclosures are at a 71-month low.

Much of that drop is due to aggressive, principal reduction loan modifications by the nation’s five largest banks under the Mortgage Servicing Settlement. They are also ramping up short sales, which have now surpassed sales of foreclosed homes. Those foreclosure mitigation strategies are at risk from the fiscal cliff. If Congress does not extend a tax relief law on this debt forgiveness, which is scheduled to expire at the end of this month, borrowers will likely reject these loan modifications and short sale offers, given that they would then involve a huge tax bill.

(Read More: Best US Housing Markets for Buyers and Sellers)

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100311070