Bill’s Place

Many people and much of the media are pointing to recent improvements in home prices as a sign that the single family home market is bottoming and starting to recover. It seems to me that an alternative way to look at recent changes in the housing market might be to look at things a bit differently.

How about reading the tea leaves this way:

Several institutional asset managers have convinced investors that buying single family homes ‘in-bulk’ and then renting the houses or flipping them is a good business that will provide better yields than most other investments  currently available (in The Bernanke Economy). However, it seems the institutional asset managers that are doing this have ignored that single family home property management and single family home ‘flipping’ are generally not ‘scaleable’ activities. That is, the operational costs of single family property management and single family home 'flipping' are very high, and the activities involved usually cannot reach economies of scale.

Meanwhile, the media is reporting a recovering market in housing. And, some homeowners who have discretion about the timing of selling their homes make a discretionary decision not to list their home and to wait for a better price – because all indications and the media say home prices are rising. This reluctance to list reduces the LISTED inventory, which further creates the appearance of a recovering housing market.

Then, in a few months, the investors in the institutional funds that have purchased homes 'in-bulk' begin to realize the institutional managers are not reaping the expected returns and they begin to cash-out of the institutional home buying funds. This cashing-out forces the institutional funds to sell the homes they bought ‘in bulk’ at the best price they can get. 

Many very smart institutional investors have mentioned the operational difficulty and lack of ‘scaleability’ as reasons bulk home buyers may not succeed at single family home property management and / or single family home ‘flipping’.

Some Resources:

Private Equity Has Too Much Money to Spend on Homes By John Gittelsohn | pub. Bloomberg News - Jun 12, 2012:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-13/private-equity-has-too-much-money-to-spend-on-homes-mortgages.html

Institutional Investors Are Turning to Residential Foreclosures Investing in single-family rental market in its infancy By Arleen Jacobius | Pensions & Investments April 2, 2012: http://www.pionline.com/article/20120402/PRINTSUB/304029978  

Insight: The Wall Street Gold Rush in Foreclosed Homes By Matthew Goldstein & Jenneifer Ablan - Forbes Magazine 3/20/2012, at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/20/us-usa-foreclosures-investors-idUSB...

Investors Flock to Housing Looking to Buy Thousands of Homes in Bulk By Morgan Brennan - Forbes Magazine 4/3/2012, at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/morganbrennan/2012/04/03/investors-flock-to-housing-aspiring-to-own-thousands-of-homes/

Och-Ziff Calls Top Of "REO-To-Rental", And Distressed Housing Demand, With Exit Of Landlord Business Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/17/2012 http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-17/och-ziff-calls-top-reo-rental-exit-landlord-business 

 The Housing Bet Warren Buffett Wishes He Could Make By Steve Shaefer pub. Forbes Markets 3/29/2012: http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveschaefer/2012/03/29/the-housing-bet-warren-buffett-wishes-he-could-make/#  

Critics Question Investment Fund’s Sacramento Rental Venture By Hudson Sangree and Philip Reese Sacramento Bee – Monday April 8, 2013 http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/08/5323832/critics-question-investment-funds.htm

Lower Rates Push Yield Seekers to Higher Risk By A. Gary Shilling – Bloomberg News - Jan 29, 2013, at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-29/lower-rates-push-yield-seekers-to-higher-risk.html

Warren Buffett Says, “Buy Real Estate Now!” at the same time he mentions the problem of “scaleability” see video from CNBC Squawk Box pub. February 27, 2012: https://youtu.be/XOGP6hd0B24 

 Many politicians, some federal regulators, and many vocal media commentators claim that the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and its regulatory evolution had nothing to do with the creation of the U.S. housing and mortgage bubble. It seems that, at some point in the near future, an objective review of the facts may require a revision of the claim that the CRA was not a significant factor in the creation of the U.S. housing and mortgage bubble.¹

The Community Reinvestment Act: Its Evolution and New Challenges*

A speech by Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke 

At the Community Affairs Research Conference, Washington, D.C.

March 30, 2007

From the third paragraph below the heading: The Evolution of The CRA

Even as these developments were occurring, extensive change was taking place in the financial services sector. During the 1980s and 1990s, technological progress significantly improved data collection and information processing, which led to the development and widespread use of credit-scoring models and the availability of generic credit history scores. Deregulation also contributed to the changes in the marketplace. Notably, the lifting of prohibitions against interstate banking was followed by an increased pace of industry consolidation. Also, the preemption of usury laws on home loans created more scope for risk-based pricing of mortgages. Securitization of affordable housing loans expanded, as did the secondary market for those loans, in part reflecting a 1992 law that required the government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to devote a percentage of their activities to meeting affordable housing goals (HUD, 2006). A generally strong economy and lower interest rates also helped improved access to credit by lower-income households.