Institutional investors squeezing families out of buying homes

Jordan Kavana
Jordan Kavana

Hedge funds and private-equity firms are buying up single-family homes across Florida, helping to push up home prices by 20 percent or more, the Tampa Tribune reported.

About 46 percent of single-family homes purchased in May were all-cash transactions and investors bought at least half of the properties sold, Florida Realtors statistics show.

Jack McCabe, a real estate consultant and researcher in South Florida, thinks the investors are bidding up prices on homes too high and squeezing out end users, such as families that want to live in them, the Tribune said.

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“The appreciation here is artificial,” McCabe told the newspaper.

Jordan Kavana, whose Miami-based Transcendant Investment Management owns single-family homes in Florida and throughout the Southeast, described investors’ appetite for buying in bulk as “scary,” according to the Tribune.

“Honestly, we see another bubble coming,” Kavana said. [Tampa Tribune]Emily Schmall