Institutional investors ramped up activity in the second quarter, buying 284,000 homes — up from 277,000 in the first three months of the year. However, that increased activity wasn’t enough to raise their overall share of the market, which dipped below 30 percent for the first time since Q1 2025, as individual homebuyers fought market headwinds and pushed existing sales past the 1 million mark.
Ivo Draginov | Credit: LinkedIn
“While investor home purchases increased during the second quarter, they didn’t keep pace with the much larger increase in overall home sales during April, May and June,” BatchData president Ivo Draginov said of the firm’s quarterly investor report published on Thursday. “Existing home sales increased by over 323,000 transactions during Q2, but the overwhelming majority of these purchases were made by traditional homebuyers. Investor purchases only rose by about 6,700 transactions during the quarter.”
The report found that large investors — those with portfolios of 1,000 or more properties — continued to retreat in Q2. This tier accounts for only 2 percent of the 15.9 million investor-owned homes in the U.S. For the 10th consecutive quarter, they sold more homes than they purchased.
Owners with portfolios of 101 to 1,000 homes accounted for 1.71 percent of the market, while those who own 51 to 100 homes represent 1.05 percent of investor-owned stock.
The smallest investors hold the lion’s share of stock: those owning 11 to 50 homes hold 4.53 percent of stock, and those owning fewer than five properties hold a whopping 92 percent of investor-owned single-family homes.
Investor activity is strongest in states with robust tourism industries, BatchData found, with Maine (30.92 percent), Wyoming (30.58 percent), Alaska (26.66 percent), Montana (26.61 percent) and Hawaii (28.58 percent) having the highest percentage of investor-owned single-family homes.
However, Texas, California, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia account for approximately 30 percent of the nation’s total investor-owned property, with 5 million single-family homes.
This concentration of activity in the South and Southeast reflects greater affordability: the region had the lowest median price, at $361,000, according to the National Association of Realtors’ September existing-home sales report.
“The largest investors – those owning more than 100 homes – are even more highly concentrated in the South and Southeast, where 12 of the top 14 metros with the highest institutional ownership are located,” the report read. “Atlanta and Jacksonville have the highest rate of institutional investor ownership of single-family homes at 4 percent each. Almost 3 percent of the homes in Charlotte are owned by large investors. No other metro area has more than about a 2 percent level of ownership.”
The typical investor spent $ 449,776 per home in the second quarter, in line with the past two years of data, which puts the typical investor purchase price between $418,813 and $458,926. The largest investors tended to spend the least, however, with their typical purchase price landing at $275,526.
On the sales side, investors most often sold to an individual buyer (62 percent), with an average sale price of $399,324. The remaining 38 percent of sales went to other investors, the report explained.
BatchData said mortgage rate fluctuations largely drove the second-quarter trends, as 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged about 6.41 percent in April, May and June. All-cash buyers are expected to gain more of an upper hand in the second half of the year, the report said, as rates push past 7.50 percent.
Meanwhile, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act had no impact, as Congress passed it during the second half of June. However, the firm expects initial effects to show up in Q3, as the Act limits the buying activity of investors with portfolios of 350 homes or more.
“The ownership data is already clear,” the report explained. “The share of investor-owned homes held by each portfolio-size tier was the same before and after the legislation passed, and investors holding more than 1,000 homes account for just 2.19 percent of investor-owned properties. The new restrictions apply to a narrow slice of the market. The vast majority of investor-owned homes belong to small, entrepreneurial owners.”
