subject: Landlords Look Set To Expand Their Portfolios In 2012 [print this page] The real estate market in the United States has been very volatile for the last decade, causing lots of people to make some wild estimations regarding what will occur over the next several months. Lots of high profile experts know that a good indication and future predictions in the market is driven by the genuine investors who purchase and offer large volumes of property. It has certainly been predicted that these investors control ten to twenty percent of the overall market, making them an incredibly crucial group to study in order to forecast where the market is heading.
Several large groups of investors have announced that they are using the depressed real estate prices as an opportunity to buy up hundreds or even thousands of homes, apartment buildings, and commercial properties. In fact, many investors and real estate analysts have declared 2012 the ideal year to expand holding of real estate within all types of investment portfolios.
A lot of analysts have written about how the real estate market has been in a steep decline over the past several years. This decline has led to a record number of foreclosures, short sales, and people who are simply walking away from their homes. To an investor, however, this means the market is full of inventory with very little demand. The lack of demand and abundance of supply means that prices in some areas are at historic lows. For investors, now is the time to buy.
The great amount of supply, however, has meant that many investors have the opportunity to buy multiple units. In some of the Recession's worst hit areas, such as Florida and California, investment firms have been able to buy entire condo buildings and sub-divisions of houses. In most of these cases, investors are buying packages of foreclosed properties directly from banks who do not want to be in the landlord business, nor do they want to have unattended property on their books.
After buying these distressed properties, many investors are making repairs and small upgrades, then renting them out. The large numbers of individuals and families who have recently gone through a foreclosure has meant that there are a historic number of people who are looking to rent. Landlords who have bought these groups of distressed properties are in an ideal spot to meet this demand. By buying the properties cheaply, real estate investors are given a lot of leeway when setting rental prices.
Because of the low price and widespread availability of these distressed properties, landlords are projected to buy a lot more of them throughout 2012. In fact, some analysts are predicting that real estate investors may make up about thirty to forty percent of the market in 2012.
