Major investors are having a significant influence on the US residential real estate market. They represented one in four home sales in 2024, 25.7%. Investors played an unprecedented role in the single-family residential market during the second quarter of 2025, buying up one in three homes. That’s a huge turnaround, even as they were still down from the previous year. Texas, California, and Florida lead the country with the most homes owned by corporations. At the same time, Hawaii, Alaska, Montana, and Maine have the highest proportion of such properties.
Despite the name, small investors largely don’t own investor-owned homes. In truth, more than 90% of the market share is made up of those who own ten units or less. Conversely, institutional investors have sold more homes than they’ve bought for six quarters in a row. Unfortunately, this trend has resulted in a nuanced world where retail investors are increasingly not competing against larger players.
In Q2 2025, they bought nearly 16,000 less single-family homes than during the second quarter last year. That price mark means investors were still paying an average of $455,481 per home in the latest quarter. That figure represents the largest average investment seen over any of the last six quarters. These large, often corporate, investors manage over 1,000 properties apiece and account for just 2% of all investor-owned homes. Given their stature and clout, their influence goes far in dictating market dynamics.
Through 2022, the average home purchased by these large investors was $279,889. By the time they sold those homes, the average sale price had jumped to $334,787. However, institutional investors continue to have a powerful grip on the market. Now, unlike ever before, they’ve moved the goalposts beyond the traditional single-family home purchase.
“While investors purchased more homes than they sold in the second quarter, they did sell over 104,000 homes, with 45% of those sales going to traditional homebuyers.” – Ivo Draginov, co-founder and chief innovation officer at BatchData.
Rick Sharga is the founder and CEO of CJ Patrick Co. He contended that the ongoing evolution among institutional investors shouldn’t be seen as a sign that they are exiting the market. Instead, they’re moving that same capital into build-to-rent communities.
“They’re not exiting the space, just diverting capital into build-to-rent communities. But this shift means less competition for small investors and traditional homebuyers, while also adding more rental supply, which is needed in today’s market where younger adults often opt to rent since they can’t afford to buy a home.” – Rick Sharga.
As the New York Times reported recently, these investors own one-fifth of the country’s 86 million single-family homes. The impact of institutional investors is still concentrated in the Midwest and South regions, continuing to distort emerging local housing markets. These are more than fleeting trends — they represent a systemic shift that may have durable effects on homebuyers and renters, too.
As the market continues to change, an influx of smaller investors are making their mark, even while bigger players pull back from some markets. As a result, more young adults than ever are priced out of homeownership. This means that the demand for rental properties is through the roof. This change is bound to affect the behavior of small and large investors alike in the months ahead.