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76 INSTITUTIONAL BUYERS: SWIMMING AGAINST THE FLOW As the competition for distressed properties increased in recent years, many of the midsized to mammoth institutional investors who gobbled up tens of thousands of foreclosure properties near the bottom of the real estate market have pulled back on their acquisitions. Eighteen percent of homes sold at foreclosure auction were purchased by institutional buyers—defined as buyers who have purchased at least 10 properties in a calendar year—in 2019, according to an analysis of public record data from ATTOM Data Solutions. at was down from 20% in 2018 to a 20-year low (as far back as data is available). e institutional investor share of purchases at foreclosure auctions peaked in 2009 at 60%, according to the ATTOM data. It gradually decreased from there but remained above 40% through 2014, after which it dropped to below 30% in 2015 and 2016 and then below 20% in 2018 and 2019. For REO purchases, the peak institutional investor share came a few years later in 2013 at 11%, but the share has similarly decreased steadily since then, dropping to a 16-year low of 8% in 2019. JWB Real Estate Capital is an example of an institutional buyer that pulled back in recent years on its purchases of existing homes, including at foreclosure auction. Since it was founded in January 2006, the company has purchased and renovated more than 2,000 existing homes—many of them purchased at foreclosure auction or as REO—and built more than 1,300 properties. But the company's ratio of existing purchases to new builds was reversed in the past few years. In 2019, the company built over 400 new homes and purchased about 150 existing homes, according to J Alex Sifakis ,WB President. Sifakis said JWB—which resells most of the homes it acquires as turnkey rentals—is looking to potentially increase its purchases of existing homes via foreclosure auction and other acquisition sources given the recent market turmoil triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. "We are buying everything now if the price is right," he said. "We're 100% privately capitalized … (so) we are not subject to the whims of Wall Street." MIDSIZED INVESTORS: ADJUSTING TO THE CURRENT Access to funding during the coronavirus crisis is a concern for Chicago-based investor Michael Hallman, who said he has been rehabbing and reselling 12 to 20 properties a year since 2012 and also owns about 15 rental properties. "I've got about 10 properties right now for sale. … I've taken lower prices than normal. … I've had people pulling out of them because of the coronavirus," he said, adding that he can no longer The share of buyers who said they purchase fewer than five investment properties a year has jumped dramatically even over the past year, from 51% in a similar Auction.com buyer survey conducted in June 2019 to 76% in the February 2020 survey. Feature By: Daren Blomquist

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