My wife and I have been house hunting for a few years now. There's a lot of things that have held us back from purchasing, mostly in that the houses we want we can't afford and the houses we can afford, we don't want. But I digress. Two years ago, we would choose a neighborhood, put in our price range, and probably get about 20-30 results. Today? Same neighborhoods, same price range, and the number of results are less than half that, if not lower. To make matters worse, the turn around time here is ridiculous. Shit literally goes on the real estate site one day and by the time I have time to show it to Dala sales are already pending. It's fucking dumb. Two years ago it was hard. Now? It's feeling fucking impossible.
I was looking at apartment buildings in '08. Friend of mine owns 5 units and it works out nicely for him. The GRM (Gross Rent Multiplier - literally the purchase price to the rental income) back then was like 6,7. It's 14-18 now. I checked out a big ol' $6m apartment complex yesterday; for that $6m investment your net income is $240k a year. In order to break even on that $6m building you need to make a $5m downpayment. So the people who are investing in that market right now are the ones that have $5m or more in cash.
Same here... cash is king. We're competing against people who are trying to shield their marijuana profits through real estate. People are literally laundering money through real estate. Guess who wins between me with great credit and a contract on my house - or a dude who literally has a briefcase of cash.the turn around time here is ridiculous