It is by now well understood that the US housing market over the past year has not benefited from broad consumer participation, exhibited best by the unprecedented, 13 year low collapse in mortgage applications. And since bond yields which recently "soared" to 3.00% only to drop right back have not resulted in a spike in applicants for home mortgages, it is clear that the problem is far more broad and systemic and has to do more with affordability than any other aspect of the market. And yet one thing that did support the elevated, or as some call them, bubble prices, of US houses, was the bid from institutional investors: those "house flippers" who buy a home with the intent of either renting it out or selling it to a greater fool.