Investmet buying of foreclosed housing

Since the bottom of the subprime crisis, some big institutional investors have been buying foreclosed houses to convert them into rentals. Institutional investors have 100s of thousand homes in the past five years.

But, is the big wave of buying over?

The biggest buyers -- Blackstone Group, American Homes 4 Rent, and Colony American Homes -- appear to have slowed their buying.  Instead of buying across the country, they are still buying but mainly in selected regions in lat 2013.

Perhaps the slow-down is due to higher prices.  But some states are completing foreclosure proceedings with the start of a new year as shown in monthly statistics from January 2014.