Realtor.com |  December 11, 2012 | By Diedre Woollard

A new survey shows that active real estate investors are still ready to buy up plenty of properties. A joint BiggerPockets.com/REI Nation survey conducted by ORC International for BiggerPockets.com shows that despite rising prices and shrinking foreclosure inventories, 65 percent of active real estate investors plan to buy as many or more residential properties in the next 12 months as they did in the past year. A total of 39 percent of active investors intend to increase their purchases over the next twelve months while 26 percent plan to buy as many in the year to come as they did in the past year. This group represents an overall pool of 4.5 million investors. Only 30 percent said they plan to buy fewer properties than they have in the past. Last year investors purchased 1.23 million homes, a 64.5 percent increase over 749,000 in 2010, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Investors Contribute To Local Economies

Some 3 percent of American adults, or 7 million people, consider themselves to be real estate investors and an additional 9 percent of all Americans own investment property today but have no current plans to buy more. Investors are a huge part of the economy, spending $9.2 billion a year to repair housing with a media expenditure of $7500 per property. The survey found that real estate investors are spending more than four times as much as the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program to repair and rehabilitate the nation’s housing stock. Twenty percent will spend $10,000 to $30,000 on their next property and 16 percent plan to spend more than $30,000. “This survey puts some hard numbers behind the contribution that investors are making towards not only improving neighborhoods and fighting blight, but also towards driving the economy. Those dollars provide jobs and put money into local economies with local companies,” said Chris Clothier, a partner with REI Nation. 

DS News | May 28, 2012 | Tory Barringer

Memphis Invest announced today that it has sold 229 homes to out-of-town, independent investors since January in a run-up to a recent investor weekend.

Memphis Invest hosted the investor weekend May 11-13 in order to showcase local single-family rental properties and to demonstrate Memphis’ strengths as a rental market. The company specializes in locating and renovating distressed properties before placing tenants in them. While some people renovate and flip these houses, it’s becoming more common for investors to buy and hold houses to take advantage of a growing demand for single-family rental homes.

In addition to showcasing homes at the event, Memphis Invest presented a $61,000 donation to Memphis-based St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The company announced in January that it and its partner, Fortune Builders, Inc., would donate to St. Jude a portion of the proceeds from all of its home closings from January to the end of the investor weekend. Memphis Invest also announced that it would give an additional $1,000 to St. Jude for each of the homes sold during the weekend, a total of $23,000.

“Anytime we’re able to show investors properties in person, it really makes the entire process come to life and it offers a tangible link to the area where they’re directing their capital,” said Chris Clothier, partner at Memphis Invest. “People from New York, California and even Canada and Asia who could invest anywhere in the world see the benefits of investing in property in Memphis. That says a lot about the future stability of our community. Because St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is such a defining cornerstone of Memphis, it was only fitting that we partner with our investors to support the hospital.”

Memphis Invest, based in Memphis, Tennessee, Invest provides single-family rental real estate investment services to domestic and international clients looking to include residential real estate ownership in their investment portfolios.