Cash-rich real estate investors trigger bidding wars, frustrate other buyers

"Melissa Diggins and her fiance, George Mills, live in the basement of his parents' house in Woodbridge with their two Great Danes, the tan-colored Achilles and Odin. They made a dozen offers on houses in Prince William County, some well above the asking price, but lost out on all of their bids, more than half of the time to investors making all-cash offers. "We thought to ourselves: 'Enough is enough,' " Diggins says. "We'd sometimes offer more than the asking price and we wouldn't even get a call back. It was crazy.""