Tag Archives: Investment

As homeownership rates dwindle and the single-family rental market continues to grow, what options exist for traditional mortgage lenders and servicers? And what does the future look like as renting becomes more and more common?

Despite rising home prices, investors are still flocking to the market—and in droves. Investment home sales grew 4.5 percent last year, while the average median investment-home price jumped 8 percent. Low mortgage rates helped to keep investors in the market as prices climbed.

Homeownership is on the minds of most Americans and despite rising prices, they still believe that purchasing a home is a good financial decision.

Nationwide lender for single-family rental (SFR) property investors B2R Finance announced this week that Darren Thompson has been hired as CFO and EVP of strategy. Thompson brings more than 30 years of experience in the real estate and mortgage industries to B2R Finance. His previous positions include executive leadership roles with American Express, Fannie Mae, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs. Most recently, he was a founding member of Railfield Partners, a real estate and financial services advisory and asset management boutique.

The possibility of a high return on investment has given institutional investors the opportunity and motivation to cash out, RealtyTrac says in a new report. To examine the return on investment institutional investors could receive by selling off now, the company analyzed more than 200,000 purchases made by institutional investors made in the last few years.

Nationwide, home sales fell 1.2 percent in the third quarter compared to the same period last year, the brokerage said in a recent report. Sales have been down year-over-year for every quarter so far in 2014. At the same time, sales of homes priced at at least $1 million continued to lift, rising 9 percent over the past year.

Michigan-based United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), one of the nation's fastest growing wholesale lenders, announced on Tuesday the rollout of its newest product: Investor Edge, an offering designed specifically for borrowers seeking to purchase or refinance non-owner occupied investment properties.

Home flipping sales, or those in which a home is purchased and sold within 12 months, represented 4 percent of all single-family home sales in the United States in the third quarter, a decline from 4.6 percent in Q2 2014 and from 5.6 percent in the third quarter of 2013, according to RealtyTrac.

In a note sent earlier this week, equity research analyst Richard Bove at Rafferty Capital Markets warned clients of a potential mortgage crisis in the making, according to a report from CNBC. With the Federal Reserve on track to end its monthly bond purchases, Bove cautions that the loss of one of the tools used to help lift housing out of its post-recession rut could hurt the market, especially as interest rates start to tick back up.

Nationwide sales of flipped homes dropped both quarter-over-quarter and year-over year in the second quarter of 2014 as profit margins shrank, according to RealtyTrac. About 31,000 homes were flipped—bought and sold again within 12 months—in Q2, the company reported, accounting for 4.6 percent of all single-family home sales in the United States.