Investors make up highest share of buyers in 5 years

A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Property Play newsletter with Diana Olick. Property Play covers new and emerging opportunities for real estate investors, from individuals to venture capitalists, private equity funds, family offices, institutional investors and large public companies. become a member to receive future editions straight to your inbox.

Both individual and corporate real estate investors purchased one-third of all detached houses sold in the second quarter of 2025. This is a 27% increase from the first quarter and the highest percentage in the last five years. CJ Patrick Co. uses numbers from BatchDataa real estate data provider. Investors accounted for 25.7% of housing sales in 2024.

Although the share of sales is high, the raw numbers are lower. Investors bought 16,000 fewer homes in the second quarter of this year than a year ago, but home sales overall this year were much weaker than last year. This explains the gain in investor share. Investors continue to own about 20% of the country’s 86 million single-family homes.

“As investors bought more homes than they sold in the second quarter, they sold more than 104,000 homes, with 45% of those sales going to traditional home buyers,” said Ivo Draginov, co-founder and chief innovation officer at BatchData. “So in addition to the important role investors continue to play in providing necessary liquidity to the weak home sales market, they are also bringing much-needed inventory to the market for both rental properties and homeowners.”

While large institutional investors continue to capture most of the headlines in the single-family rental space, small investors make up more than 90% of the market. These are individuals who own 10 or fewer properties. The largest investors, who own 1,000 or more properties, account for just 2% of all investor-owned homes.

Unlike individual investors, institutional investors are now selling more homes than they are buying, a trend that has continued for six consecutive quarters. The country’s largest homeowners, Invitation Houses, Progress Housing, American Houses 4 For Rent FirstKey Homes and FirstKey Homes sold more homes than they bought in the third quarter of this year, according to an analysis by Parcl Labs.

“They’re not moving out of this space, they’re just directing capital into build-to-rent communities. But while this shift means less competition for small investors and traditional homebuyers, it also means more rental supply needed in today’s market, where young adults often choose to rent because they can’t afford to buy a home,” said Rick Sharga, founder and CEO of CJ Patrick Co.

Regionally, the places with the highest number of investor-owned homes are Texas, California and Florida. This is largely because they are also the most populous states. The states with the highest percentage of investor-owned homes are Hawaii, Alaska, Montana, and Maine. These are also states where tourism is intense.

Investors have always focused on lower-priced homes because they can offer the best profit on resale years later. According to the CJ Patrick report, investors paid an average of $455,481 per home in the second quarter of this year; this is well below the national average price of $512,800. However, this was the highest average investor price in the last six quarters as home prices continue to rise overall.

Investor homes are generally either smaller or in less expensive housing markets. Large investors purchased cheaper homes from the overall pool, with an average purchase price of $279,889. The average sales price was $334,787. Institutional investors are most concentrated in the Midwest and Southern regions, where prices are below the national average.