[Detrytus]

> Where I am there’s been a huge increase in houses being bought for cash by equity hedge funds, like 25% of houses going on the market.

Is this increase in absolute number of sales, or increase in the percentage? Because, if the house affordability due to high interest rates goes down, one of the only buyers with money that remain are hedge funds. So, in the past you had 1000 homes selling per year, 100 of those going to hedge funds, now you have 400 total sales, with 100 going to hedge funds. The relative percentage of houses bought by hedge funds increases from 10% to 25%, even though the absolute number remains flat.

[WorldMaker]

It seems to be an increase in both absolute number of sales and increase in the percentage. Some signs indicate hedge funds purchasing consumer real estate (houses/apartments) is working towards an all time high thanks to the bottom falling out of the commercial real estate market in 2020 and it being far less reliable an investment post remote-work culture. A lot of commercial real estate investors have flipped to consumer real estate in a way they hadn't before. It may be a while before a new equilibrium happens.

(This is where investments in risky things like flipping various cities' "downtown' commercial real estate into additional consumer real estate are starting to look really interesting, especially in some of the cities that had massive corporate tower investments just pre-2020. It's also where you see some cities directly and indirectly pressuring major corporations into RTO policies in the hopes of it releasing some of the pressure on the consumer real estate market in those cities by encouraging hedge funds to reinvest in corporate real estate. It's hard not to feel those pressures are somewhat futile long term, but to feel sympathy for why they seem like necessary short term sandbagging projects.)