Investor Home Sale Losses Triple from Last Year, but There Is a Catch!

March wasn’t a great month for investor home sales. A new Redfin report shows that one in every seven homes sold by investors was sold at a loss. That’s 14% of investor sales or about triple the number from a year earlier, and the highest level of investor home sale losses since 2016. But there is a catch! These sales were mostly for investors who bought more recently and sold after a short length of time, such as flippers.   Hi, I'm Kathy Fettke and this is Real Estate News for Investors. Please remember to subscribe to this podcast and leave us a review.   The housing market has slowed dramatically as home prices and mortgage rates make it tough to buy, and in some areas and for some people, tough to invest. It’s important to remember that the report is based on national statistics, and that six in seven of those real estate investors made money on sales, although their gains may have been smaller.   Typical Gains for Investor Home Sales   Redfin says the typical investor who sold a home in March, sold it for about 46% more than they paid. That’s down from a little over 55% in March of last year. Profit will likely be less than that, because of other costs, like renovations.   Redfin Senior Economist Sheharyar Bokhari says: “You might wonder why investors don’t just wait to sell until the housing market bounces back. Many long-term investors who rent their properties are doing that, but many flippers–especially those who bought recently–can’t afford to.” She says: “Holding onto homes that aren’t producing income can be expensive because the owner is on the hook for property taxes, operating costs, and in many cases, mortgage payments.”   Phoenix Redfin agent Van Welborn says: “Home flippers aren’t reaping the gains they used to.”   Flippers More Likely to Report Losses   If you narrow the overall results of the Redfin study down to “just” flippers, Redfin says that one in five sold at a loss in March. Redfin defines a flipper as someone who bought and sold a home within a nine-month time frame.    Holding long-term will likely produce much better results, although the median U.S. asking rent has been slowing. It was down .4% year-over-year in March but that is also the first time it’s gone down in three years. Redfin agents say that Airbnb operators are also hurting in some markets, and have had to sell.   Flippers Lose More in Pandemic Boomtowns   Places where investors are more likely to sell at a loss are the pandemic boomtowns like Phoenix and Las Vegas. In Phoenix, 31% sold at a loss in March. In Las Vegas, that percentage was more like 28%.    The report says that many of the sellers are mom-and-pop investors who are worried about where the market is headed, possibly remembering what happened in 2008. But today’s housing market is nothing like it was in 2008, and real estate is still a solid investment over the long term. Many institutional investors see it that way. Instead of selling, many are holding on to their properties and waiting for buying opportunities.   My Formula for Real Estate Wealth Redfin says that 10% of the homes on the market right now are for sale by investors. That’s higher than at any time before or during the pandemic but down from a peak of 12.4% last year. My formula for real estate wealth is to buy wisely and hold on to your properties long-term, especially now when there’s such strong demand for single-family rentals.    At RealWealth we encourage the use of a platform called DealCheck for a thorough analysis of a deal before you close on it. DealCheck is a powerful property analysis platform that’s easy to use, and provides instant details on a property’s cash flow, cap rate, ROI, profit from a sale, acquisition cost, and other helpful information.   If you’re a RealWealth member, just sign into the portal and look for DealCheck under the Resources tab. If you aren’t a member, it’s free and easy to sign up. And, please remember to subscribe to this podcast!   Thanks for listening! Kathy    Links:   1 - https://www.redfin.com/news/homeowner-tenure-2022/