Doomers have claimed that since rates went up, investors are fleeing the market.  Thankfully Alejandro of the latimes.com looked into it a bit deeper to find that there are plenty of investors, but it’s finding the deals that is the challenge – an excerpt:

Now the foreclosed homes in those markets are almost gone — yet investors have kept buying, competing with individual buyers in standard sales.

The number of so-called absentee buyers, usually cash investors, has dropped slightly in Southern California since hitting a record in January. But they still account for more than 1 in 4 home purchases in the region. And just 8% of those deals were on foreclosed homes in June, compared with 25% a year earlier and a peak of 55% in February 2009.

“Everybody and their dog is an investor,” said Dick Caley, a Long Beach real estate agent. “It has gotten to the point where I do not even return the call.”

As it turned out, housing investors needed neither the prodding of the Federal Reserve nor the bulk foreclosure sales from Fannie Mae, which never materialized beyond the pilot phase. The single-family rental industry now has several major players in multiple markets, with some recently created companies trading publicly.

The mix of investors and their strategies are shifting, with large financial firms starting to pull back and smaller players moving in, looking to buy, fix and flip homes for a quick profit. But rapid price increases are making it harder for people to afford a house and qualify for a home loan.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-housing-investors-20130913,0,6265193,full.story