That's the topic of this article by Michael Fletcher explaining that large Wall Street investors are spending billions on housing and bidding up prices. Will that lead to another collapse in the market down the road? In some parts of the country this investment may be the cause of alleged recovery in the housing market. Here's an excerpt:
Big investors are pouring unprecedented amounts of money into real
estate hard hit by the housing crash, bringing those moribund markets
back to life but raising the prospect of another Wall Street-fueled
bubble that won’t be sustainable. Drawn by the prospect of double-figure profit margins on rents
and the resale of homes whose prices plummeted in the crash, hedge
funds, Wall Street investors and other institutions are crowding out
individual home buyers. If the chain of easy credit and dangerous leverage that started on Wall
Street fanned the housing bubble and eventual crash, some analysts find
it disturbing that major investors are the ones snapping up the bargains
— and eventual big profits — left in its wake. … Real estate executives say institutional investors — who in some cases
are bidding on hundreds of homes a day — account for as much as
70 percent of sales in some Florida markets. Over the past two years,
analysts say, they also have accounted for a majority of purchases in
other parts of the country where housing prices are rebounding sharply.
