The bursting of the housing bubble in the last decade seems ancient history here, where for the first time home buyers are competing with investors to get into single-family homes, with prices approaching $ 1 million. "Everybody is a child out of school of law for an investor from China, walking with thousands of people to spend," said Kameron Eliassian, a Los Angeles real estate agent. "I don't know where he is coming from, and I don't care. Just show me proof that he is there, and we are good. "After saving money for years, waiting for the housing market hit bottom, buyers from all over the country appear eager to return, attracted by low interest rates and the prospect of a good deal.
But with the number of homes for sale at historically low levels and major investors buying thousands of properties, buyers are facing a radically changed market and prices are skyrocketing. The percentage of households that bought with money rose in many markets across the country. Almost a third of all homes bought in Los Angeles during the first quarter of this year was for all the money, compared to only 7 percent in 2007. In Miami, 65% of the houses sold were for offers of money, compared with 16 percent for six years.
Prices in all-cash deals are also increasing significantly. In Los Angeles, the average price in an all-cash home this year is approximately $ 351,000, compared with $ 230,000 in 2009. Over the same period, the median price above all increased to $ 410,000, up to £ 85,000. In fact, last month, house prices in Southern California reached its highest level in the last five years.
Money from all buyers, typically investors eager to renew and quickly resell or rent houses, are making it harder for first time buyers, who typically rely on mortgage loans that can take weeks or months to materialize. More California has been reversed in the last year than in any year since 2005. And while Los Angeles might be a frenzy, is not an anomaly. Boston buyers are offering $ 100,000 more than the asking price or place offers on homes, which they spent a few minutes in. In San Francisco, Miami and Phoenix, sellers are looking at dozens of offers in the days of putting your House on the market, often accompanied by letters from would-be buyers professing his love for the property.
New York has seen similar drops in inventory, and prices have been rising steadily since 2009.Shortly after Andres Alvarez, 36, married last year, he began to look for a House with his wife, imagining that their stable jobs, good credit and savings would make them the perfect buyers in Los Angeles. They were ready to spend $ 700,000. Its optimism deflated quickly. "We thought we were the cream of the crop, but anything that was in our price range and move-in ready, there was insane in this competition," said Mr. Alvarez. They put on almost a dozen bids, often losing to cash buyers, before finding a two-bedroom house for $ 650,000. "It can be a great time to buy, but it's a horrible time to be a buyer," he said.
Dick and Susan Yost can vouch for that. They wanted to downsize, leaving his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for his son and his family. "We will bid on eight places before we get finally one," said Mr. Yost. "The worst that we bid was $ 85,000 over the asking price, and we couldn't." Houses even unpleasant, he said, had "people around them."Still, there are plenty of skeptics wondering how long the sharp price increases can last."People are realizing you've probably reached the bottom, but the types of topics that we're seeing in places like California looks like history is repeating itself," said Daren Blomquist of RealtyTrac, which monitors the residential sales. "This is not sustainable in the long term, at least not for the regular buyer at home, so I think that there are some warning flags there."
For agents who spent the last years struggling for business, change is welcome. When Mr. Eliassian listed a 3-bedroom house in the Hollywood Hills for $ 699,000 this year, he fears that the current tenants would make it difficult to schedule the buyers. But with only two open houses — a meaning only to other agents — came through almost 300 people. I had to turn off the phone to avoid people asking to see the site," said Mr. Eliassian. Within a week, he had six offers and the House sold for $ 745,000. He said he had represented and sold the most homes money buyers in the last year than at any time in his career.