Press Release
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November 14, 2025
Lack of home affordability means discounts for investors
IRVINE, Calif., November 14, 2025 – Cotality, a leading global property information, analytics, and data-enabled solutions provider, today released its latest update on investor activity in the U.S. housing market.
Today's historic lack of affordability has created an environment with less buyer competition, more choice in inventory, an increased willingness from sellers to entertain offers below list price, and a strong rental market. Investors are stepping in to take advantage.
Investor activity rose from 29% in June 2025 to 30% in September 2025. This upward trend continues to build on the elevated market share controlled by investors since late 2024 and represents a year-over-year increase of three percentage points.
“Investor activity followed its usual seasonal pattern. However, this latest surge is very different than the one seen in 2021 and 2022. During that period, rapid price appreciation persuaded investors to make aggressive offers and win bidding wars. Now, it makes more sense to wait until a home has been sitting on the market and negotiate a lower price,” said Thom Malone, principal economist at Cotality. “As sellers find it harder to sell at the price they want, inventory is accumulating and investors are taking advantage of the opportunity for discounts. Some sellers may choose to become landlords, but others might decide to take a small price cut and sell to an investor.”
Share of home purchases made by investors by month, January 2018 – September 2025
Data source: Cotality Public Records Data
Both investors and owner-occupied buyers followed the typical seasonal pattern seen in real estate, decreasing their purchase levels (as opposed to their share) in Q3 2025. Investor share, however, continues to increase, but this is largely due to fewer owner-occupied buyers making purchases. Still, in terms of volume, investors are buying around 25% fewer homes than they were in 2021. With housing appreciating far slower than other asset classes, there is no clear sign they will restart investment at the elevated levels seen during the pandemic.
Monthly home purchases made by investors and non-investors, January 2018 – September 2025
Data source: Cotality Public Records Data
Medium-sized investors (owning 10–99 properties) were largely responsible for the increase in investor share in Q3. They went from making 10.2% of all single-family purchases in June 2025 to 10.9% in September 2025. Small investors (fewer than 10 properties) held mostly steady, making about 14% of investment purchases. Large investors (101–1,000 properties) and mega investors (over 1,000 properties) were responsible for around 3% and 2.5% of purchases, respectively.
Medium investors are more likely to be cash buyers than small investors, and unlike large and mega investors that often operate under the umbrella of larger institutional investors, they are less likely to diversify into other assets. Furthermore, medium buyers are less likely to be flippers, and their buy-and-hold business model is a more appealing approach in the current environment.
Share of investor purchases by investor size, January 2018 – September 2025
Data source: Cotality Public Records Data
Geographic trends
Investors continue to buy in areas of the U.S. with high population growth. Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, and Chicago are the top five cities where investors bought so far in 2025. Dallas and Houston also lead the nation for non-investor purchases. California metros like Los Angeles and Riverside remain an exception, generating strong investor interest despite weaker or even negative population growth.
Top 20 MSAs by total investor purchases, January– September 2025
Data source: Cotality Public Records Data
The number of homes investors buy and the share of total purchases they represent in an area are not necessarily correlated. Some metros like Los Angeles and Atlanta are high on both lists. However, while Phoenix and Chicago have high purchase volumes, neither metro ranks among the top 20 when looking at the share of total purchases that investors represent.
Instead, these major cities are outranked by smaller metros like McAllen and El Paso in Texas and Wichita, Kansas where a larger-than-average presence of medium-sized investors inflates the investor share of total purchases.
El Paso and McAllen also have very few mega investors. This is not surprising since mega investors generally concentrate investments in large cities to build market dominance and benefit from economies of scale.
Investor share in the top 20 MSAs by investor purchases, January – September 2025
Data source: Cotality Public Records Data
Outlook
Investor share follows predictable seasonal trends and will likely continue to rise until January. In fact, Cotality experts indicate that there is a possibility that investor share could surpass the previous record of 32% from January 2025. What remains to be seen is whether investors will increase their activity when owner-occupied buyers jump back into the market.
Current market dynamics may prevent residential real estate from reattaining its former appeal as an investment opportunity. Low fixed-rate mortgages and large cushions of home equity are giving sellers plenty of wiggle room to wait out the slow market. This is leading to more inventory and longer days on market as sellers wait for buyers to meet them at their price point. Although Cotality does expect sales to increase, appreciation is forecast to remain weak for the foreseeable future.
Methodology
The Cotality Investor Purchase Indicator defines an investor is defines as a buyer that owns 3 or more properties. Small investors are defined as those with less than 10 properties, medium investors less than 100, large less than 1000, and mega as greater than 1000.
It is an investor purchase indicator, rather than an investment purchase indicator, meaning that it identifies purchases made by investors, but makes not judgement about the what the property will be used for.
For the analysis here only arms-length purchases for single family homes (detached and townhomes) are considered.
About Cotality
Cotality accelerates data, insights, and workflows across the property ecosystem to enable industry professionals to surpass their ambitions and impact society. With billions of real-time data signals across the life cycle of a property, we unearth hidden risks and transformative opportunities for agents, lenders, carriers, and innovators. Get to know us at www.cotality.com.
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