Inland Empire housing is more affordable but still out of reach-Investors pushing out homebuyers

By Alejandro Lazo, Los Angeles Times
February 16, 2013, 6:03 p.m.
Bill Sepe has gotten used to rejection.

The 28-year-old Rancho Cucamonga native has put in nearly 200 unsuccessful offers since August on Inland Empire homes, varying from typical suburban ranches to classic craftsman homes.

All this anguish comes in pursuit of a modest home in the exurb of San Bernardino County, the epicenter of the Southern California housing crash. Plummeting values here sparked a vicious wave of foreclosures.

But it's precisely because prices fell so far here that Sepe can't buy a house now. In a sharp irony, many would-be homeowners in hard-hit markets can't compete with a flood of all-cash offers from investors, some backed by Wall Street war chests.

So they're missing out on the only upside of the real estate crash: historically low prices and interest rates.

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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-inland-empire-recovery-20130217,0,1704128,full.story