Hit and Run is a term that sums it up nicely. In regional housing bubbles, prices run up fast but the dropoff can be equally dramatic when speculators run for the exits.
Investors hit and run on housing
Catherine Reagor - Arizona Republic
04/25/2006 02:07:34
Investors didn't just ravage metropolitan Phoenix's housing market last year. Almost 28 percent of all home sales nationally were investor driven in 2005, according to a new report.
In Phoenix the figures is probably closer to 35 percent.
The National Association of Realtors reports 27.7 percent of all homes sold last year went to investors, and another 12 percent were sold to people buying vacation homes.
The demand for both investment and vacation homes obviously drove the housing market to its record levels last year. Those sales made up 40 percent of all deals.
If the housing market fell by half that much this year, it would be devastating to Phoenix's economy. For the first quarter of this year, used home sales were off 34 percent from 2005's first quarter.
