Affordable housing activists are concerned the purchase by investors of many distressed and low-cost homes will lead to rental prices too high for the low-income community in many urban areas to afford while the owners are part of an absentee corporate structure, according to a report noted in housingwire.com. “While cash sales are down from their July 2011 high of 42.8%, they are still very high (at 38.4%) compared to the 2001-2007 average of 25%,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for Core Logic, at a conference on the topic two weeks ago. “Investors in general, whether institutional or ‘mom and pop,’ are primarily concentrated on two types of assets: distressed (real estate owned and short sales) and existing homes, rather than new builds.” Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) says, “Nearly two-thirds of the tenants in these corporate rentals surveyed in my district are burdened with unaffordable rent. If there is anything that we should have learned from the housing crisis, it is that Wall Street’s top priority is increasing its bottom line, not improving communities or creating products that provide long-term benefits to consumers.” MHProNews has learned residential rents have risen 20 percent since 2008.##
