Wild and Crazy Times at the Low End of the Housing Market

Floyd Norris had an interesting piece on the impact of investor purchased homes on prices at the lower end of the housing market. His takeaway is that investor purchased homes have made housing less affordable for many low and moderate income households.

While this is partly true, by focusing only on the last couple of years the piece misses much of the picture. While investor purchases have pushed prices to unusual levels in many markets, in some cases they essentially put a floor on the mar...