Moreover, in 2015, institutional buyers made up 12.2% of all investor purchases, however this share has shrunk to 7.5% in 2025, after rising to a peak of 16.3% in 2021.
“One of many largest takeaways is that from a nationwide perspective, the most important buyers account for a very small proportion of single-family dwelling purchases and that share has decreased lately,” Krimmel informed HousingWire in an interview. “So the ban goes to have much less of a chew now than it might have had it been enacted a number of years in the past. It’s attacking a pattern that’s already lowering versus one that’s turning into more and more a part of the market.”
Small buyers account for some 53% of investor purchases
In distinction to the small share of institutional investor purchases, small buyers (those that bought lower than 10 properties) accounted for roughly 53% of all gross investor buy exercise prior to now decade, adopted by 27% for medium buyers (those that bought between 10 and 99 properties) and eight% for giant buyers (those that bought between 100 and 349 properties). In whole, the report discovered that buyers bought roughly 5.5 million single-family properties over the previous a long time, whereas non-investors bought 58 million single-family properties throughout the identical time interval.
The report additionally discovered that institutional investor exercise is extremely concentrated in sure metros and sure ZIP codes inside these metro areas.
Based on the report, the top-10 metros by whole exercise account for over 50% of institutional investor purchases, whereas the top-25 metros account for 75%. Prime-10 metros with the very best institutional investor share of all purchases embrace, Memphis, TN-MA-AR (4.4%); Colorado Springs, Colo. (4.3%); Charlotte-Harmony-Gastonia, NC-SC (4.2%); Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, Ga. (3.8%); Birmingham, Ala. (3.8%); Dallas-Forth Value-Arlington (3.6%); Raleigh-Cary, North Carolina (3.5%); Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood, Ind. (3.5); Winston-Salem, North Carolina (3.1%); and San Antonio-New Braunfels, Texas (3.0%).
The Memphis metro space additionally reported the most important share of all investor purchases at 19.2%, adopted by Birmingham (15.7%), Raleigh (15.0%) and Dallas-Fort Value (13.9%). Nevertheless, relating to the variety of properties bought by buyers, the Dallas-Forth Value metro topped the chart with 65,579 whole investor purchases between 2015 and 2025, adopted by Atlanta (57,691 properties), Houston (41,870 properties) Phoenix (39,888 properties) and Charlotte (29,998 properties).
Houston has a excessive focus of investor purchases
The report highlighted Houston for example of a metro space the place investor purchases are extremely concentrated, as over the past 11 years, institutional buyers purchases have been clustered in simply 10 ZIP codes, the place they captured as much as 73% of the native investor market. Nevertheless, at their peak of exercise, institutional buyers represented simply 10% of all gross sales exercise in these ZIP codes.
Given the excessive focus of institutional buyers in ZIP codes like these in Houston, Krimmel stated it’s comprehensible that this pattern has grabbed the eye of many.
“The focus is why this delivers such a visceral response particularly from people who find themselves residing in these explicit metros or ZIP codes,” Krimmel stated. “However any such scenario is far more the exception than the rule, so consequently, we don’t suppose that is actually going to extra the needle on affordability, as it’s in only a handful of ZIP codes, which is not going to transfer costs at a metro degree not to mention at a nationwide degree.”
Investor ban ought to weigh short-term advantages
Based on the report, the small scale and excessive focus of institutional exercise limits the impression these buyers have on pushing out potential homebuyers on the metro-level. As a result of this, the report argues that any proposed investor ban ought to weigh “the concentrated, short-term advantages of including a small fraction of properties to the market towards the danger of including yet one more barrier to new housing provide in the long term.”
Nevertheless, the report notes that institutional investor exercise is cyclical and delicate to financing circumstances. As a result of this, their participation out there may improve if macroeconomic circumstances change, which means {that a} ban on institutional buyers could have a distinct impression beneath completely different financial circumstances.
“The genesis of institutional buyers coming into the market was the very distinctive and unlucky place the market was in after the monetary disaster. The housing market was in a very unhealthy place and there was all this inventory, so buyers got here in,” Krimmel stated. “The opposite time we noticed this was in the course of the pandemic and that was one other historic anomaly.”
Even when circumstances like these have been to come up once more, the report states that an institutional investor ban most probably will not deliver “fast stock aid or meaningfully alter nationwide, and even metro degree, affordability circumstances within the quick run.”
Higher methods to enhance affordability
As a result of anticipated lack of impression, the report recommends issues like zoning reform and elevated development as higher methods to enhance housing affordability.
“Whereas limiting large-scale acquisitions would possibly present a modest, one-time injection of stock into choose neighborhoods, it doesn’t tackle the underlying want for brand spanking new development,” the report states.
Information from Cotality additionally helps these claims. In a report printed in mid-February, Cotality discovered that small buyers (lower than 10 properties bought) made up the best share of investor purchases, representing 13.9% of all investor purchases as of early December 2025. This was adopted by medium buyers, or those that personal between 10 and 99 properties, (10.8%), massive buyers, those that personal between 100 and 1000 properties, (3.0%) and mega buyers, those that personal over 1000 properties, (2.8%). Moreover, the share of investor purchases fell in 2025, dropping from 31.9% in January 2025 to 30.3% in December 2025. Nevertheless, this share remains to be up from 2021’s excessive of 25.5%, in response to Cotality.
Moreover, Cotality’s information confirmed that the San Jose metro space had the most important share of investor purchases in 2025, whereas Atlanta recorded the most important share of mega investor purchases final 12 months. Nevertheless, just like the Realtor.com report, Cotality additionally discovered that buyers bought the best variety of properties in 2025 within the Dallas metro space, adopted by Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix and New York.
It stays to be seen if this information, in addition to concerns raised by trade groups could have any impression on the invoice which is headed to the Home of Representatives for consideration earlier than it may be signed into legislation by President Donald Trump.
