IMHO the big money is investing in realestate. It is a sellers market in certain parts of the country. Where I live here in Southern California it is crazy. The houses are sold in a week way over the asking price.
Just bought an investment house in the Tampa Bay area of Florida and we were getting out bid left and right on the many houses that we bid on. We finally landed this one and escrow will close on July 8. We bought our current house in 1977 for $75K and on Zillow the price is $920K.
yes, exactly right! Whenever I hear that someone paid cash for a $500k house, I know that this was not a normal middle-class family. A middle-class family does not have $500k in cash sitting around. Anyone who does have $500k in cash likely earns an income that enables them to afford a much more expensive home. These HAVE to be big $$ investors looking for inflation hedges.
I just hope that when this house of cards falls, we won’t bail out the elites again...
A very astute business associate and close friend of mine who runs a real estate development company once said to me: "Take a look at the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans, and notice how FEW of them made their fortunes in real estate."
This was a guy who made a killing back in 2007 when he bailed out of all his residential projects right before the crash.
Zillow is way over on it estimates imho. I could never get what it thinks my house is worth.