Jennifer McGuinness on investing in 2021’s hot housing market

Today’s HousingWire Daily episode features a crossover episode of HousingWire’s Housing News podcast. In this episode, HousingWire Editor in Chief Sarah Wheeler interviews Jennifer McGuinness, president of correspondent lending at Invigorate Finance.

In this episode, McGuinness discusses the SFR model and her opinion on the investor versus owner mix when it comes to housing. Additionally, she touches on the vision for her newly launched company, as well as this year’s purchase market. 

Here is a small preview of the interview, which has been lightly edited for length and clarity:

Sarah Wheeler: The lack of housing inventory is a huge pain point right now, and we hear a lot of talk about the share of homes that are being bought by large investors to rent out, or even the whole build-to-rent concept, which takes some portion of homes off the market. You were a pioneer of the SFR model and making that work from the investor side — what is your take on the investor vesus owner mix when it comes to housing?

Jennifer McGuinness: Well, I think it depends on how you cut the segments up. I think there’s a lot of different opinions. Right now, if you really look at what’s been happening, higher buyer demand has obviously driven property prices up significantly and there are fewer sellers in the market as there aren’t as many properties listed. Some of the reason for that is due to the foreclosure and eviction moratoriums, as well as candidly, some people have also made their homes their office. Additionally, I think what you are seeing in the market is that median home prices have increased almost 20%. So, if you looked a year ago from this past April, you would see the current median price of an existing home saw a 19% increase from 2020 as it sold in April 2021 for $341,600.  I think that’s an interesting question. I think the mortgage market being, in a lot of ways, agency-driven at the moment, gives investors an upside in some ways by being able to take some of these properties out because they’re cash buyers.

HousingWire Daily examines the most compelling articles reported across HW Media. Each afternoon, we provide our listeners with a deeper look into the stories from across our newsrooms that are helping Move Markets Forward. Hosted by the HW team and produced by Alcynna Lloyd and Victoria Jones.