IMPOSSIBLE
LANDLORDS
closure crisis but with good prospects for long-term growth. They
are buying up so many houses
in these places — 200,000 in
the past two years, according to
Bloomberg News — that they are
edging out ordinary buyers.
They are also driving home prices higher: a boon for millions of
people with underwater mortgages, but a scary proposition to many
real estate experts, who are already
warning about new housing price
bubbles forming in some areas.
Whether these investment companies will continue to swoop
up homes, and whether they can
thrive long-term, remains unclear.
The real estate investment industry as a whole has struggled this
year, with investors worried that
rising interest rates and other factors will slow the rapid increase in
home prices and sales.
American Homes 4 Rent’s $811
million public offering in July raised
less than projected, and the company fired 15 percent of its workforce,
according to a Bloomberg News report. Colony Capital had planned a
public offering for this summer, but
put it off indefinitely.
Even so, the firms that are buying up homes have raised enormous sums of cash, and seem
HUFFINGTON
11.17.13
determined to spend it as quickly
as possible. Agents continue to
swarm auctions and open houses,
and investors are moving into new
markets, such as Memphis.
For Culpepper, this mad scramble to acquire properties has had
very personal repercussions. She
was forced to go to court to fight
“I didn’t know what to
tell them. I couldn’t
do anything about it.
It was like pulling teeth
to get [t H