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Real estate investors are snapping up a bigger share of U.S. homes on the market as rising prices and stubbornly high borrowing costs freeze out many other would-be homebuyers.Nearly 27% of all homes sold in the first three months of the year were bought by investorsthe highest share in at least five years, according to a report by real estate data provider BatchData.Between 2020 and 2023, the share of homes bought by investors averaged 18.5%.All told, investors bought 265,000 homes in the January-March quarter, an increase of 1.2% from the same period a year earlier, the firm said.Despite the modest annual increase, the rise in the share of investor home purchases is more a reflection of how much the housing market has slowed as traditional buyers face growing affordability constraints, according to BatchData.The U.S. housing market has been in a sales slump since early 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Home sales fell last year to their lowest level in nearly 30 years.They’ve remained sluggish so far this year, as many prospective homebuyers have been discouraged by elevated mortgage rates and home prices that have kept climbing, though more slowly.As home sales have slowed, properties are taking longer to sell. That’s led to a sharply higher inventory of homes on the market, benefitting investors and other home shoppers who can afford to bypass current mortgage rates by paying in cash or tapping home equity gains.“As traditional buyers struggle with affordability, investors with cash and financing advantages are stepping in to maintain transaction volume,” according to the report.BatchData analyzes U.S. home sales records to determine which properties were purchased by investors. These could include vacation homes or rentals, but not a homebuyer’s primary residence.Investors bought 1.2 million homes in 2024, up from an average of 1.1 million homes a year going back to 2020, according to BatchData.Even so, investor-owned homes account for roughly 20% of the nation’s 86 million single-family homes, the firm said.Of those, mom-and-pop investors, or those who own between 1 and 5 homes, account for 85% of all investor-owned residential properties, while those with between 6 and 10 properties account for another 5%.Institutional investors that own 1,000 or more homes account for only about 2.2% of all investor-owned homes, the firm said.And that number could get smaller, amid signs that large institutional investors are scaling back home purchases.Out of a group of eight of the biggest companies that own and lease single-family houses, including Invitation Homes and American Homes 4 Rent, six sold more homes in the second quarter than they bought, according to data from Parci Labs. Alex Veiga, AP Business Writer
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Theres nothing more American than fireworks, the Fourth of July, and bald eagles. Unfortunately the combination of the first two elements is stressful for all wildlife, including the internet-famous bald eagle family of Big Bear, California: Jackie and Shadow, and their daughters, Sunny and Gizmo. Ahead of the big holiday last week, Friends of the Big Bear Valley (FOBBV), the nonprofit organization behind the livestreamed web cameras that have turned these birds into superstars, attempted to present evidence to the city about the harmful impact that fireworks have on nature. However, the fireworks display went forward nonetheless, to the dismay of many of the eagles’ fans. Here’s a recap and what to know about the controversy. A preshow warning about fireworks In 2023, FOBBV created a presentation outlining the many negative impacts of fireworks ahead of a Memorial Day show. The loud noises of the nighttime spectacle cause the eagles to enter fight-or-flight mode and fly off into the night. Eagles do not have great nighttime vision and risk injury when they flee a scene in such a way. In 2019, for instance, Jackie and Shadow left their chick Simba unprotected and without food for the night because they were scared. In 2022, Jackie and Shadow left the area for six days. “We have noticed that Jackie and Shadow fly off each year with the fireworks, we have them on camera,” said Sandy Steers, executive director of FOBBV, according to local station ABC7. Fast Company reached out to FOBBV for further comment. A problem for animal life more broadly Bald Eagles are not the only animals impacted by fireworks. Other local birds become disoriented and some even have heart attacks and die. Mammals have been known to run into busy roadways. Pets such as dogs and cats also suffer, often becoming lost in all the chaos. Beyond their impact on animals, fireworks pollute the environment. Toxic substances such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and strontium negatively impact air quality. Perchlorates, a chemical compound that acts as an oxidizer, are highly water soluble, which means they can contaminate lakes. The soil and plant life are also at risk from debris. For all these reasons and more, FOBBV urged the city to find a creative alternative, such as a block party, drone show, and/or light show. How did Jackie and Shadow react to the fireworks? As anticipated, Jackie and Shadow were not too happy about this years firework display. They followed their typical nighttime routine, roosting around 8 p.m. local time. They appeared ready for sleep at around 8:30 but were rudely awoken instead around 9 by the bangs of fireworks. One eagle flew away immediately. Jackie made several vocalizations to express her displeasure and warn others about danger. Both eagles were gone by 9:18. The good news is, Jackie and Shadow were spotted on camera the next evening, safe and sound. What about Sunny and Gizmo? Jackie and Shadow’s daughters are more of a mystery. They have not been seen since June 27, before the fireworks display. But this is normal behavior as the girls have been testing their limits and trying to decide where to settle down. It is quite possible they were further away from the show, but the organization still worries about the impact the fireworks had on the young birds. What have the organizers of the fireworks said about this? Visit Big Bear, a city-affiliated group that was involved in the fireworks, defended the decision to put on the display, according to the Los Angeles Times, saying it did not believe it would disrupt the eagles’ habitat. Fast Company has reached out to the group for additional comment. What have fans of the eagle family said? Many are not happy. A Change.org petition calling for the cancellation of the fireworks had attracted more than 40,000 signatures over the course of several days. Even though the petition didn’t stop the fireworks from happening, organizers wrote that they were happy to have spread awareness about the issue. However, amid the widespread criticism, some supporters of the eagles are also urging for calm. In a Facebook post on Thursday, FOBBV noted that some critics of the fireworks had been “aggressive with agencies and their employees” and had taken to cyberbullying tactics and even posted people’s personal information. FOBBV said it condemns such behavior. “It’s time to be kind!” the group wrote. How can I check in on the eagles myself? The livestreamed bald eagle Nest Cam is still up and running. You can join thousands of other viewers via this YouTube link or by watching the embedded video below.
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The All England Club, somewhat ironically, is blaming “human error” for a glaring mistake by the electronic system that replaced human line judges this year at Wimbledon.The CEO of the club, Sally Bolton, said Monday that the technology was “inadvertently deactivated” by someone for three points at Centre Court during Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova’s three-set victory over Sonay Kartal a day earlier in the fourth round. On one point, a shot by Kartal clearly landed past the baseline but wasn’t called out by the automated setupcalled Hawk-Eyebecause it had been shut off.Hours after Bolton spoke with reporters, the club issued a statement to announce that it “removed the ability for Hawk-Eye operators to manually deactivate the ball tracking,” meaning “this error cannot now be repeated due to the system changes we have made.”Bolton declined to say who made the mistake on Sunday or how, exactly, it occurred or whether that person would face any consequences or be re-trained. She did note that there were other people at fault: the chair umpire, Nico Helwerth, and two who should have let him know the system was temporarily downthe review official and the Hawk-Eye official.“We didn’t need to put line judges back on the court again,” Bolton said. “We needed the system to be active.” Is Wimbledon using AI for line calls this year? No. But like most big tennis tournaments nowadaysthe French Open is one notable exceptionWimbledon has replaced its line judges with cameras that are supposed to follow the balls on every shot to determine whether they land in or out.There are those, particularly in the British media, who keep referring to this as part of the ever-increasing creep of artificial intelligence into day-to-day life, but Bolton objected to the use of that term in this case.“The point I would want to emphasizeand perhaps contrary to some of the reporting we’ve seenis it’s not an artificial intelligence system. And it is electronic in the sense that the camera-tracking technology is set up to call the lines automatically, but it requires a human element to ensure that the system is functional,” Bolton said. “So it is not AI. There are some humans involved. And in this instance, it was a human error.” What happened on the missed call at Wimbledon? Russia’s Pavlyuchenkova was one point from winning a game for a 5-4 lead in the first set against Britain’s Kartal on Sunday when a shot by Kartal landed long. But there was no ruling from Hawk-Eye.After a delay, Helwerth decided the point should be replayed, which Pavlyuchenkova thought showed bias toward an opponent competing in her home country. With Hawk-Eye back up and running after a delay, Kartal won that game, but Pavlyuchenkova took that set and the match.The All England Club looked into what happened and found that the line-calling system actually was off for three points before anyone noticed.The system itself worked “optimally,” Bolton said repeatedly.“In this instance, sadly,” she said, “it was the human part of the operation that made a mistake.” Why was the Hawk-Eye system accidentally turned off during a match? Bolton said the system is shut down between matches”and the humans are the people that need to do the activating and deactivating”and someone accidentally did so during Pavlyuchenkova vs. Kartal.Asked why, Bolton responded: “Well, I don’t know. It was a mistake, obviously. . . . I wasn’t sat there, so I don’t know what happened.”She said Helwerth could have made a ruling himself on the controversial non-call, the way he did on the prior pair of points, but instead just decided to pause the match.“I’m assuming,” Bolton said, “he felt he had not seen it properly.”Pavlyuchenkova said after the match the official told her he thought the ball was out. What do players think about the use of technology at Wimbledon? Players are divided on whether there even should be electronic rulings during matchesunless it is fool-proofor whether there should be a return to Wimbledon’s old way of doing things.Since 2007 through last year, there was a combination of the human touch and technology: There were line judges on court to make calls, but players were allowed to challenge and ask for a video replay of a point if they thought there was a mistake.“It’s such a big match, big event,” Pavlyuchenkova said. “Since we have already automatic line-calling and so much invested into this, we should probably look into something else to have better decisions.” Associated Press writer Mattias Karén contributed to this report. Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis Howard Fendrich, AP Tennis Writer
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