Who Buys Duplexes Anyway?

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), sales of investment properties, including duplexes, constituted 17 percent of all home sales in the United States in 2010.

As there were 5.28 million homes sold last year, that means 897,600 were  duplexes and investment properties. Divide that by 50 states, and it’s an average of 17,952 per state.

That’s a lot of real estate investing!

According to recent data, there’s uptick in that figure this year.

In fact, in July alone, NAR found 29 percent of all purchases were all-cash deals; likely involving real estate investors.

In a down economy featuring high unemployment, just who are these real estate investors anyway?

Half of them are people under the age of 45, while those under 54 comprise another 26 percent.

Are they millionaires?

Hardly; 58 percent of them earn less than $100,000 a year.

While 39 percent of last year’s investment property buyers used a mortgage, 59 percent of them did not.  And of those who used a loan, 50 percent contributed more than 30 percent toward the down payment.

Of these buyers, 45 percent saw real estate as a good opportunity to diversify their investment portfolio.

A whopping 77 percent of all real estate investors in 2010 think now is a good time to purchase real estate. So good, in fact, that 52 percent of them plan to buy another duplex in the next two years.

What’s holding you back?