Inventory of lower-priced homes plunges in California as investors buy up properties
Source: Los Angeles Times
... Lower-priced homes attractive to first-time buyers are in particularly scarce supply, according to a report released Thursday by real estate website Zillow.
The number of lower-priced homes available in the Golden State shrank by more than 40% over the last year, according to the analysis. Lower-priced homes were defined as those that sold for $313,200 or less. California saw the largest inventory reduction in that classification of any state.
... Renting out foreclosed homes has increasingly emerged as an investment opportunity to Wall Street. Financiers are busily studying ways to take the single-family home rental business, for years mostly a mom-and-pop affair, and make it a bigger industry. That has made it difficult for first-time shoppers to compete.
... Big Wall Street groups are even exploring ways of taking rental income from foreclosed homes and packaging those income streams into complicated securities, similar to the way big banks, sliced, diced and packaged mortgages during the boom years.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-zillow-inventory-20121010,0,6734256.story
