Listed for 440k, price cut to 320k, sold for 460k!

Hello everyone, I have been thinking about buying a home here in Broward or if something affordable in Palm Beach county. But I have been sidelined pretty hard. I make ~92k a year, before taxes. I grew up here, went in the Air Force and came back right after the pandemic when prices were through the roof… So I've been waiting til now to buy, but I still cannot really afford much.

Found this townhome that was really nice, it was originally listed at 440k then the owners dropped it to 320k. Looking at the numbers if at the time I got 6% interest rate (VA helps me get a lower interest rate), with 20% down (~64k), plus hoa, taxes, and insurance my monthly payments would be ~2.5k. This sounded great and affordable, it would still be 33% of my take home pay before taxes…

So, I talked to a real estate friend of mine and we went to check out the home. This would've been great, plenty of space for the family and really nice location. However, soon after the home received three offers, one for 340k, another for 370k, and another for 390k. It seemed unfortunate but I suppose I was out priced here… I left it alone, but was curious to see how it turned out. Turns out, what seems to be an investor, offered 460k and won the purchase, only to place the home for rent for 3.8k, which is roughly 300$+ per month than the other townhomes around it.

The interesting thing is, my real estate friend showed me what was offered. Which was 5% down payment at a 6.6% interested rate, putting the price that the now owner has to pay at ~4.4k.

This is mind boggling, why would they offer so much higher than the other offer only to put this for rent and lose money per month? I assume they must have other homes that make up the difference…

But, I guess at the heart of this my really question is, is this now how things will be? I keep hearing that the housing market will not crash at all, but how do we have these numbers where people are losing money on their investment and out buying people by a tremendous amount, and the market continue in such a pace?

I would like to put the Zillow link to the townhome here, but don't want to break the rules of No external links. If its acceptable in this case please lmk and I'll edit the post. It is my first time posting here.