65% Increase in Housing Investment

By Stevie Duffin Updated on 12/14/2012

By Daniel Duffield

As more investors turn to bank-owned properties for investments this year, recent data reflects the change, showing a 65% increase in homes purchased as investments according to the most recent Foreclosure News Report from RealtyTrac.

Rising from 749,000 in 2010, U.S. properties purchased as investments reached 1.2 million in 2011.

"Hundreds of thousands of these decrepit properties can't be financed because banks won't lend money to regular homebuyers (or investors) to purchase them, leaving cash investors as the only buyers," wrote Octavio Nuiry, author of RealtyTrac’s current Foreclosure News Report.

Nuiry reached these conclusions drawing from data released by the National Association of Realtors, which found that those who purchased a home as an investment in 2011 had an age median of 50 and earned an average of $86,100.

According to RealtyTrac, the government-sponsored enterprises have lead REO sales in the current year, followed by The Bank of New York Mellon ($20.25 -0.28%), Bank of America ($7.02 -0.07%), Deutsche Bank ($27.92 -0.84%), US BankCorp. ($33.22 -0.205%), Wells Fargo ($33.30 -0.14%), Chase ($34.53 0.0889%), HSBC Holdings ($39.59 -0.72%) and Citigroup ($25.06 -0.28%).