I think the rise of the house flipping shows has given rise to more people trying to make money flipping houses.
This is 100% correct. I've been in so many dog-**** flips in the past 5 years I've been appraising houses. You have all of these online people like Kris Krohn & the BiggerPockets BRRRR people telling everybody how easy "passive real estate" investing is. Not to say that it can't be financially rewarding, but it seems like everybody thinks they're going to become moguls flipping houses without basic understanding of how real estate works. Some people obviously do it well, but that's maybe 1 in every 10 that I see.
The lack of inventory is a HUGE problem. Year to date there are about 600 fewer houses sold in our MLS area (Northeast Iowa, Waterloo/CF as the largest "metro" area) compared to last year at this time. It's a pretty rural market obviously, so I'm sure in bigger markets, the problem is exacerbated. Almost anything under $300k is still gone in a day or two & selling above listing prices. Values have held strong with no signs of dropping here.
All of this is with 7% + percent mortgage rates - if those go down, even to 5.50% which I've seen projected by next year, it's going to be even worse for home buyers to land a property. It's much easier for investors to cash flow at those rates vs the 7-8% rates they can get now.
It's certainly not a healthy housing market, but I don't know what the answer is at this point.
