Ben Bernanke can pride himself in having contributed to the housing recovery by pushing interest and mortgage rates to record lows, but he seems to have encouraged the wrong type of buyers. A report by Radar Logic shows that the share of institutional investors in the housing market is rising, to the point that the entire year-over-year gain in aggregate transaction activity was fueled by them, as opposed to home owners. While everyone and their grandmothers are now bullish housing, a massive shadow inventory and the specter of traders, rather than homeowners, playing the market suggest it’s not all roses going forward.
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