Investors are buying homes as often in Las Vegas as they are nationally, a new report shows, a stark change from recent years when local deals far outpaced the national average.
Institutional investors — those who purchase at least 10 homes annually — bought 1.9 percent of homes sold in the Las Vegas area in the first half of the year. That’s down from 8.6 percent of sales in the same period in 2014 and 14 percent in the first half of 2013, according to RealtyTrac.
Nationally, investors bought 1.9 percent of homes sold in the first half of 2015. That's down from 4.1 percent in the same period in 2014 and 5.7 percent in the first half of 2013, the company found.
Bargain-hunting investors swarmed Las Vegas after the bubble burst to buy cheap homes, often in bulk, to turn into rentals. They revived the market and drove up prices at some of the fastest rates nationally, raising fears of another housing bubble.
But faced with rising prices they helped create, investors have been steadily pulling back.
Some 28 percent of homes sold in June in Southern Nevada were purchased with cash. That’s down from 35 percent a year earlier and far below the peak of almost 60 percent in February 2013, according to the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, which mostly tracks previously owned homes.
The drop-off indicates that “cash buyers and investors are still a factor in the local housing market but that their influence is waning with each passing month,” the GLVAR recently said.