A look at real estate figures for the top US metro areas and a case study of San Francisco and Dallas: The Los Angeles metro area with more than double the population of the D.C. metro area has the same amount of housing inventory.
ByWhen investors look at markets they factor in a multitude of variables. Large investors were looking at capitalization rates and also local economies when buying rental property. For the first time in US history did we have a nationwide effort by large investors to buy up single family homes. This of course has caused a big dip in overall available inventory but has also pushed many home builders to focus on what the market was demanding which turned out to be more rental housing. The Los Angeles metro area (which includes the OC) has some of the weakest value for rental investors. This for a region where the majority of households rent. For example, the entire LA metro area has 19.7k homes for sale with a population of 13 million. Compare this to the D.C. metro with 19.2k homes for sale but with a population of 5.6 million. This is why you see some zany behavior when it comes to buying. But how do things look for the largest metro areas in the rest of the US?…
