The bidding war is back!
But now imagine, instead of overly heated buyers trying to muscle their way into their dream homes, investors and first-time buyers elbowing each other out of the way to snap up foreclosures.
The San Francisco Chronicle follows up on their January report on flipping's comeback — indeed, in recognition of the power of the flip, the Federal Housing Administration has begun allowing government-backed mortgages for flipped properties, something that was previously banned.
In the Bay Area's nine counties, houses sold at auction increased from 122 in January of last year to 637 this past January.
The fact that so many toolbelt-laden investors are devouring foreclosures in order to put them back on the market again has "frustrated" some first-time buyers, but the end result has been a return of otherwise dead properties and neighborhoods back to life, from their "partly vacant, and forlorn" states.
Pace of house flipping picks up [SFGate]
House Flippers Are Multiplying on the Foreclosure Scene [Curbed SF]
