Recently the New York Times published an article about real estate, bidding, and more. Robby Caban’s take on the issue from the article titled “Want a House Like This? Prepare for a Bidding War With Investors” is prescient.
To existing residents, the flood of investors can feel like a threat.
“It’s almost like locusts came down and bought everything up,” said Robby Caban, a neighborhood activist in Atlanta.
Ms. Caban is a real estate agent. But she avoids working with the big investors who she says are tearing neighborhoods apart — like the ones who evict existing tenants so they can raise rents, or who leave homes vacant, sometimes for years, while waiting for values to appreciate. Driving through one neighborhood recently, she pointed to a number of boarded-up homes — all, she said, with corporate owners.
Often, conventional buyers do not even have a chance. In some cases, wholesalers make unsolicited offers on properties, then flip them to investors without putting them on the public market. Ms. Caban’s inbox and voice mail are flooded with offers for “off market” deals available only to cash buyers.
Read the entire article.