A recent article from the Los Angeles Times about cash home buyers.
Cash home buyers are snatching up homes left and right making it difficult for others to purchase homes.
Check out a recent article from the Los Angeles Times about cash buyers and bidding wars in the housing industry.
LOS ANGELES — Bidding wars sound almost quaint. These days, the only way for would-be buyers to secure a home, it often seems, is to offer all cash and be ready to do so within hours, not days.
The bursting of last decade’s housing bubble feels like ancient history here, where first-time home buyers are competing with investors to get into single-family homes with prices approaching $1 million.
“It’s everyone from a kid out of law school to an investor from China, walking around with thousands to spend,” said Kameron Eliassian, a Los Angeles real estate agent. “I don’t know where it’s coming from, and I don’t care. Just show me proof that it’s there, and we’re good.”
After saving money for years, waiting for the residential real estate market to hit bottom, buyers all over the country appear eager to get back in, lured by low interest rates and the prospect of a good deal.
But with the number of homes for sale at historically low levels and large investors purchasing thousands of properties, buyers are facing a radically changed market and prices are quickly rising.
The percentage of homes bought with cash has shot up in many markets across the nation. Nearly a third of all homes purchased in Los Angeles during the first quarter of this year went for all cash, compared with just 7 percent in 2007. In Miami, 65 percent of homes sold were for cash deals, compared with 16 percent six years ago.
The prices on all-cash deals are also rising significantly. In Los Angeles, the median price on an all-cash home this year is about $351,000, compared with $230,000 in 2009. Over the same period, the median price over all increased to $410,000, up $85,000. In fact, last month, home prices in Southern California hit their highest level in the last five years.
All-cash buyers, typically investors eager to renovate and quickly resell or rent out homes, are making it more difficult for first-time buyers, who typically rely on mortgage loans that can take weeks or months to materialize. More California homes have been flipped in the last year than in any year since 2005.
And while Los Angeles may be a center of the frenzy, it is not an anomaly. Buyers in Boston are offering $100,000 more than the asking price or placing offers on homes they have spent only minutes in. In San Francisco, Miami and Phoenix, sellers are looking at dozens of offers within days of putting their home on the market, often accompanied by letters from would-be buyers professing their love for the property. New York City has seen similar drops in inventory, and prices have been rising steadily since 2009.
Click the link to read the entire article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/us/cash-is-fueling-quick-home-sales.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0