A quick note on methodology: this isn’t an exhaustive view of every single family rental purchased in Q1 2026, but only those for which we had rental price data.

Median gross yield for newly acquired single family rental properties rose from 8.1% to 8.9% comparing Q1 2025 to Q1 2026, marking a shift towards higher yielding rental properties.

While nationwide aggregates are interesting, when comparing purchase price to gross yield it’s clear investors adopt many different strategies — everything from high gross yield but low-cost properties that may have higher percent of expenses needed to very low yielding properties in high cost of living areas.

The increase in yield was mostly due to a shift in type of properties being acquired with less expensive homes making up a larger share of the percent of properties acquired.

Eight of the top ten metros that saw the largest increase in acquisitions were regions that had an average acquisition price below $250k, while all ten of the largest MSA decliners had an average acquisition price above $250k.

Looking to do this type of analysis yourself? Reach out to get setup with our ChatGPT/Claude plugin!

You can access the underlying data directly via MCP. Bulk data on nationwide rental listings and investor purchases is also available for purchase. Respond to this email if interested in learning more.

Regional patterns

Looking at major regions, the Rust Belt is experiencing the largest increase in activity with the major Texas markets also performing strongly. Outside of Austin (down 11%), San Antonio, DFW, and Houston all saw positive growth.

California saw new rental acquisitions decline sharply and Florida as a whole was roughly even, but highly dependent on market. Miami +69% and Palm Bay +61% were pulling up the numbers while Orlando −24%, Cape Coral −25%, and Sarasota −26% pulled down.

Finally, we looked at the densest one-mile radius spots to see which neighborhoods investors are buying in.

Note: given we’re looking at only a subset of rental acquisitions for a single quarter, portfolio acquisitions may skew metrics.

Diving into individual hotspots can reveal interesting behavior. In some you’ll find institutional investors buying blocks of new construction vs others where there are dozens of unique buyers.

In the Crandall, Texas hotspot, Invitation Homes bought a handful of new construction properties that they’re renting out.

The Ferguson and Cleveland hotspots are the opposite and have a diverse set of investors purchasing throughout nearly every block in the neighborhood.

If you’d like access to the underlying data, please reach out by replying to this email.

• 75210 in Dallas, TX ranks first nationally at 77.6%, overtaking the usual St. Louis and Baltimore names on pure concentration.

• The deepest top-100 metro clusters remain St. Louis, Memphis, Baltimore, and Cleveland, anchored by older housing stock and rehab-friendly price points.

• 46617 in South Bend, IN is the clearest new headline ZIP at 75.0% investor share.

Where Investors Are Most Active

The leaderboard still leans toward older, lower-basis housing stock where operators can buy below replacement cost and still make the numbers work after rehab. That part looks very similar to the earlier posts. What changed is the mix inside that theme: Dallas moved to the top, South Bend pushed into the top tier, and higher-end ZIP codes like 33133 in Miami and 90272 in Pacific Palisades remain part of the national picture.

The Hottest ZIP Codes

The top ZIP codes now break into three distinct investor strategies:

• Classic yield and rehab markets: St. Louis, Baltimore, Memphis, Cleveland, Kansas City.

• Concentrated operator bets: South Bend, Braddock, where one buyer or a small cluster drives most of the activity.

• High-end strategic buys: Miami, Pacific Palisades, where the thesis is redevelopment, privacy, or long-duration appreciation rather than cash flow.

The Metro Pattern Is Still Clear

One reason the national list still looks familiar is that investor-heavy ZIP codes remain concentrated in a handful of metros. St. Louis alone contributes twelve ZIP codes to the top 100. Memphis, Baltimore, and Cleveland continue to show up as deep ecosystems, not just isolated neighborhoods. So while the #1 ZIP code changed, the national backbone did not.

How These Deals Are Getting Financed

Biggest Movers

The same-quarter year-over-year comparison is the cleanest short-term pulse check because it holds seasonality constant.

Top Investor ZIP in Every State

This is the full 50-state table rather than a top-20 slice. Some states top out below 20% investor share. Others still have one neighborhood or submarket where investors accounted for more than half of all qualifying single-family resales in the quarter. The spread itself is the point: investor concentration remains deeply uneven across the country, even where the national narrative looks similar to last year.

The rate and point data is submitted by private lenders across the country. As more lenders submit, the data becomes more representative of the entire market so we highly encourage lenders to submit their anonymous data to the NPLA.

Over the last 6 months, RTL loans remain relatively flat with a median rate of 10.5%.

Many loans have between 1-2 points with a median of 2.0, but there’s a meaningful long-tail amount that’s higher.

For DSCR loans, March saw an increase in rates with a median rate of 7.0%, but still materially down from H1 2025.

DSCR points are tightly clustered between 1 and 2 points.

This is just a highlight of the analysis, to read the full analysis, view the NPLA post here.

To calculate this, we look at single-family rentals that were leased in both 2024 and 2025 and measure how their rents changed. This is a useful lens because it tracks the performance of the same properties over time rather than a broad market average.

Nationwide, mean same-store rent growth for single-family homes was 0.75%.

Five of the top 10 worst-performing metros were in South Florida, with other markets like Austin and Asheville posting negative returns.

The Midwest punched above its weight, with several metros posting over 4% same-store rent growth.

Of the top 15 most active states, Illinois, Ohio, and Missouri performed best, while Florida, Arizona, and Texas performed worst, all three posting negative same-store rent growth.

At the city level, the trend continues: the majority of top-performing markets are Rust Belt cities, while the worst performers are in Florida, vacation markets, and metros that saw outsized rent growth during the COVID run-up.

Workforce housing continues to be the top performer. Below, we normalize price based on the MSA and sort each property into the decile for its home value. The trend is clear — virtually everywhere, workforce housing is showing positive rent growth and outperforming more expensive rental bands.

When broken out into thirds, the least expensive third dramatically outperforms the middle, which dramatically outperforms the top third.

This trend holds when looking at raw prices rather than just value deciles.

Below are the top 40 MSAs by rental count. Bottom-decile properties in some metros are averaging over 5% same-store rent growth, but by the time you reach median values, growth drops closer to 1%.

Paid subscribers can access the MSA-level details in the spreadsheet below.

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Prior to this, there hadn't been exact definitions of what constitutes a 'Wall Street' investment firm, and many assumed the threshold would be the industry standard of roughly 1,000 properties. That's roughly the cutoff between local/regional operators and true large investment managers buying single-family homes.

We previously wrote a post on which markets were likely to be most impacted if such legislation were put into effect using the industry standard cutoff of 1,000 properties owned.

We refreshed the analysis with updated figures to include owners of 100+ properties.

As you can see in the map above, there's a significant geographic shift in where mid-market operators (100–1,000 properties) are concentrated compared to institutional owners. Much of the Northeast rises in prominence, many tertiary markets in the Rust Belt and Southeast grow, and parts of the West Coast get added.

The mid-market operators alone don't add much, with less than 1% of single-family housing stock in most states owned by mid-market or institutional investors.

The metro-level view doesn't tell a much different story. Some of the largest markets reach 4% of housing stock owned by 100+ operators, but the share quickly drops back below 1%.

There Aren't Many Operators Who Own 100–1,000 Properties

By our methodology, there are 2,420 operators that hold 354K single-family rentals in the 100–1,000 unit range. Combined with institutional investors who own 1,000+ properties, this accounts for roughly 1% of the single-family housing stock.

Our numbers are smaller than what you'll see reported elsewhere for the 100–1,000 operator group because most methodologies simply look at how many properties share a given mailing address. That introduces a large number of false positives by capturing non-investors - universities, churches, city/county land banks, property manager mailing addresses, and financial advisors - which can overstate the number of properties owned by this group by 2x.

There are two primary groups of operators at this mid-market size: those who have built portfolios and are no longer acquiring, and those who still are.

Several groups bought up many properties post-GFC but stopped acquiring as home prices rose. 34% of these operators have not purchased a property in the last two years.

Then there are the mid-market investors who are still buying, but what exactly are they buying?

As previously noted in our 2025 rental acquisitions overview and our workforce housing post, the best-performing single-family rentals over the past few years have been workforce housing — smaller, older homes often purchased in need of repair, renovated, and rented out.

This is exactly what these mid-market operators are purchasing. Below you can see the average purchase price in an MSA for a single-family home versus the average price paid by the mid-market operator.

Across the most active metros for mid-market operators, they're often buying properties roughly 40% below the median sale price. This is because they're typically buying homes that need significant renovation, are in less desirable areas, and fit the workforce housing profile.

See below for comparisons of properties purchased by mid-market operators in 2025 versus market-wide averages for year built and building square footage.

Building square footage is consistently 25% smaller.

Property age is consistently >10 years older than market.

Given where interest rates, home prices, and rents are, this is the only strategy that really pencils out for most investors looking for long-term single-family rental holds right now.

While we don't have exhaustive Section 8 data, we know that many of the operators on this list are Section 8 providers - they are customers and subscribers of ours.

If the goal is to improve home price affordability, targeting the 100–1,000 operator group doesn't appear to make much sense. Much of what they’re currently buying is in need of repair and they’re renting it out as affordable housing. They’re also concentrated in the least expensive metros in the United States.

Looking at the Financing

Private lenders originated $3.62B last year across 10,030 loans to this group, roughly 3% of total private lending market volume. The groups most impacted by this legislation would be portfolio lenders financing portfolio acquisitions and refinances. An example can be found in our January deals highlight here, a 158-unit affordable housing portfolio refi in Columbus, GA, financed by CoreVest.

However, a fair number of these investors also finance conventional RTL/DSCR loans, both for flippers and for those building out portfolios.

While we tried to filter out BTR - which is said to be excluded from the proposed ban - some of the operators in the private lender origination numbers above likely wouldn't be materially impacted. For example, many of these investors are large flippers running numerous projects simultaneously but holding for short durations, so they would likely be unaffected. We attempted to screen them out, but some are inevitably included.

• Private Lending activity continues to be strong and growing despite a challenging environment for real estate investors

• Private Lenders financed 18% of SFR purchases by corporations in 2025 vs 15% in 2024. Regional bank pullbacks and lower cost of capital for private lenders is helping increase the share of investment properties being financed by private lenders

• The total market is growing, up from $97.3B in 2024 to $121.2B in 2025, and the largest lenders are growing. 17 of the top 25 private lenders showed YoY growth. The top 50 lenders represented 56% of the origination volume

Origination volumes YoY were higher in every month of 2025 than they were in 2024, and 11 of the 12 months were higher in origination count.

The largest private lenders continue to grow, with 17 of the top 25 growing loan count YoY.

With Kiavi leading the charge at nearly $8 Billion in origination volume in 2025, the top 10 lenders captured meaningful market share, originating 28% of the volume. The top 25 lenders originated 43% of the volume and the top 100 originated 66%.

While ~78% of the volume was originated by the top 250 lenders, a long tail of >10,000 private lenders originated a business purpose loan in 2025 (many of whom were individuals doing it in their own name).

Metro Changes

Every region in the United States saw an increase in private lending activity, with the Pacific and South Atlantic leading the charge with most volume increases.

The top 15 states by volume all increased YoY and the only state to decrease was Louisiana.

The vast majority of metro areas saw YoY increases in private lender activity. We prefer to look at loan count because loan volume in small metros can get noisy (for example a large portfolio refi in Waco skews the metrics in the second chart below).

Baltimore leads the pack for the market that slowed the most in origination activity throughout the year. Plagued by a large scale fraud network, many note buyers temporarily stopped buying in Baltimore and the activity is still lagging behind what it was.

Other markets that are heavy DSCR saw acceleration throughout the year with Springfield, York, South Bend, and Youngstown seeing oversized growth.

Private Lender Penetration

One of the metrics we like to track is the percent of corporate purchased single family homes financed by private lenders. Overall, the market jumped from 15% of corporate single family homes financed by private lenders to 18%.

The West Coast dominates, with major metros seeing >30% of acquisitions financed by private lenders.

Less expensive markets where investment properties can be purchased with cash easier continue to have the lowest private lender penetration rates, with the lowest being <5%.

Cash buyers remain the most popular way for investors to purchase single family homes.

Riskiest Markets

We recently published an article highlighting the riskiest SFR markets that looks at inventory changes, supply, home value changes, price cuts, and more to identify high vs low risk markets for home price depreciation.

The higher the risk score, the more likelihood of price depreciation there is. Cape Coral, Naples, and North Port are all high, but have significantly improved YoY, while Asheville, Durham, and Chattanooga have all increased YoY and have relatively high scores.

Pre-foreclosures are rising both overall and for loans originated by private lenders, but the vast majority of metros are below 3% of outstanding loans in pre-foreclosure.

Top Borrowers

To see the top 100 borrowers last year by loan count, subscribe below.

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Higher scores mean higher risk of price declines over the next 6–12 months.

Executive Summary:

• Risk increases are migrating from the Sun Belt to the Midwest. Detroit (+13.3), Buffalo (+15.7), and Milwaukee (+8.5) are the fastest-rising risk markets, though all still remain at relatively low absolute risk levels.

• Austin and Cape Coral remain the highest-risk major markets, but both are improving.

• California markets saw the biggest declines in risk scores YoY.

• Overall, risk scores are rising nationwide, but far fewer metros have very high risk scores compared to the last few years.

Major Metro Risk Score Snapshot:

While major markets that became overheated during 2021–2022 remain at the top of the charts, their risk scores have mostly decreased YoY. Meanwhile, some Midwest markets are rising significantly but still sit at relatively low levels.

The key takeaway: extreme scores are predictive of 6-month and 12-month home price depreciation. Below we show rank-ordered home price appreciation by risk score, illustrating this trend.

The chart below shows the probability of price decline by risk score, revealing a similar pattern.

Where Risk Has Shifted

The chart below plots each metro’s risk score against its YoY change to show where risk is shifting. Florida metros are seeing sharp declines in risk scores, though they remain among the riskiest markets.

Major Northern California markets like San Jose and San Francisco saw the largest drops in risk scores while already having among the lowest scores of any major metro.

Regional Differences

Over the last year, risk scores saw several notable regional shifts. On the West Coast, California has performed particularly well, with major metros posting very low risk scores and 31 of 34 metros seeing YoY improvement.

Many Northeast hubs remain consistently low-risk.

For core single-family rental (SFR) markets, most saw rapid spikes in 2022 and have since leveled off or slightly declined.

Overall

Nationwide, risk scores have compressed—more metros are clustering in the middle, with fewer extreme outliers at either end. This likely means we won’t see major home price appreciation (HPA) decreases, but rather widespread stagnation.

A look back at Q1 2025 performance: every metro with a risk score in the high 60s or above experienced negative home price appreciation.

Metro Deep Dives

Each major metro's risk score is broken down below. The waterfall chart shows which factors drove YoY changes.

The second chart plots each metro's risk score against 6-month and 12-month HPA, offset by the respective lag periods, making it easy to compare a given risk score with actual HPA outcomes months later.

Finally, the score is decomposed over time, showing which factors are contributing most to changes in risk.

At the end of the article, paid subscribers can access a full spreadsheet of risk scores by MSA.

See below for the spreadsheet of risk scores:

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REI Nation, the Memphis-based turnkey rental provider, recorded over 30 acquisitions in January across six states — maintaining its consistent monthly pace heading into 2026.

Memphis remains their core market, accounting for 14 of 31 purchases (45%), followed by Little Rock (8), Dallas-Fort Worth (3), Tulsa (3), and smaller allocations across San Antonio, Houston, and Oklahoma City.

The typical REI Nation acquisition profile this month: a ~1,950 sq ft single-family home built around 1978, priced between $83,500 and $240,000.

A few examples:

3103 Hines Dr, Jacksonville, AR — $83,500

This 4-bed, 2.5-bath home near Little Rock was purchased from an individual seller for $83,500. REI Nation has already begun renovations and has the property listed for rent at $1,395/month. At that rent, the gross yield approaches 20% — a strong return that reflects the kind of deep-discount sourcing the company has become known for in the Little Rock metro.

1979 Kirby Pkwy, Memphis, TN — $240,000

On the higher end of January’s acquisitions, this 3-bed, 4-bath colonial in Memphis’s 38119 zip code spans 2,570 sq ft on nearly half an acre. The Zestimate sits at $290,500 with an estimated rent of $2,469/month. The previous listing described the property as needing “a little updating, cleaning, and refreshing” — sold AS-IS by investor sellers. This is a more upscale play for REI Nation, targeting a neighborhood with stronger rents and appreciation potential.

25104 E 93rd Ct S, Broken Arrow, OK — $189,000

Not all of REI Nation’s acquisitions are older, value-add properties. This 2017-built, 3-bed, 2-bath home in the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow was purchased for $189,000 — about 18% below the $229,300 Zestimate — with an estimated rent of $1,749/month. At 1,459 sq ft on a full acre, this is a clean, newer-construction rental that likely requires minimal renovation before being placed with a tenant.

6027 Tall Willow Dr, Memphis, TN — $120,000

This 3-bed, 2-bath home in southeast Memphis was acquired from Grade A Capital LLC — one of several investor-to-investor transactions REI Nation executed in January. At $120,000 against a $192,000 Zestimate, this represents a 37% discount to estimated value with a rent Zestimate of $1,451/month. Notably, roughly a third of REI Nation’s January sellers were corporate entities or LLCs.

CoreVest Finances 158-Property Affordable Housing Portfolio in Columbus, GA

CoreVest originated an $11.5 million DSCR loan to GOBM Affordable Housing LLC, secured by a portfolio of 158 single-family rental properties across Columbus, Georgia. The 60-month term loan, recorded in early January, covers homes spanning five zip codes in the Columbus metro — all residential properties built between 1903 and 2003.

With an average estimated value of ~$110,000 and an average square foot of 1,100 these are clearly workforce housing plays — older, lower-cost homes that generate cash flow through affordable rents.

Columbus has long been a market where investor demand is driven by a stable military-adjacent tenant base and relatively low entry points.

Anchor Loans Provides $200M Facility to Homebound

Anchor Loans recorded a $200 million loan to Homebound, a technology-driven homebuilder. We saw the facility span 59 properties across four cities: Dallas (24), Prosper, TX (14 land parcels), Houston (13), and Tampa (7). The initial mortgage was recorded last year with additional properties being tied to it.

At $200 million, this is one of the larger construction and acquisition facilities we’ve seen and shows the push for more homebuilder financing from private lenders.

Muncie, IN: A Small City With Surprising Investor Activity

The zip code 47302 in Muncie, Indiana saw 44 investor purchases in January alone, driven by at least three distinct portfolio trades and a flurry of smaller acquisitions.

Three portfolio trades stood out:

1. Home Free Delaware Acquisition
A local landlord sold eight homes to Home Free Delaware LLC at low prices — between $7,000 and $36,000 per property. Several were foreclosure-related transactions. At these price points, even modest rents in the $600-$800 range deliver double-digit gross yields. Home Free’s Delaware LLC structure and bulk acquisition strategy suggest a more institutional approach to the Muncie market.

2. Indiana Landowners LLC
An Irvine, California-based seller transferred six homes to Indiana Landowners LLC/. California-based investors continue to seek cash flow in Midwest markets where entry prices are a fraction of coastal values but often learn the hard way that out of state yields are tough to take advantage of when not local.

3. R & R Rentals 1 LLC
This portfolio traded for a recorded $478,800 with a $360,000 loan from First Merchants Bank, a local Indiana lender. The 10-year term and traditional financing suggest a longer-term hold strategy.

While some regional banks remain active - others are pulling back significantly from business purpose loans.

Beyond these portfolios, Muncie’s appeal isn’t hard to understand. The city is home to Ball State University (~20,000 students), creating consistent demand for student rentals. Many of the homes changing hands are also well-suited for the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher programs.

Nationwide, gross yields are coalescing around 9% with an average purchase price in the high $200,000 range.

As expected, as purchase price increases, gross yields decrease. Note, this is calculating gross yield (annualized rent / purchase price), so if a property is bought cheaply but needs a lot of work it will have an artificially high gross yield and likely to have higher capex.

When comparing rental purchases to the median price in their MSA, the majority are bought for under the median and 35% of them were bought in the bottom quartile of price ranges.

We looked at which markets had the lowest and highest median purchase price for rentals compared to their MSA and found that Rust Belt cities over-indexed on buying cheaper rental properties to rent out with Akron, Flint, and Baltimore having a median rental purchase price in the bottom quarter percentile of the market.

California on the other hand dominated above market median rentals, especially the Central Valley cities like Bakersfield, Visalia, and Modesto.

As a reminder, the subset of data we’re looking at is properties that were purchased this year and subsequently rented out via an online portal which leads to a variety of biases.

That being said, the markets that gained the most compared to 2024 were a lot of core SFR markets including Atlanta, Dallas, and Phoenix. Strong high yield cities like Detroit and Cleveland also saw the most volume increases.

Austin, and many Florida metros topped the charts for the largest rental acquisition decreases. Plagued by sharp home price depreciation and increases in operating costs, a lot of the cities represented have become much more difficult to acquire rentals in.

Rust belt cities topped the charts in markets that saw yields increase. As we previously noted - workforce housing has faired especially strong in rent growth. A lot of the markets topping the yield increase charts are ones that have strong acquisition of workforce housing.

The West Coast dominates low yield markets, with all major metros besides Boulder being on the West Coast.

The Rust Belt dominates high gross yield markets with gross yields being mostly unchanged compared to last year.

When strictly looking at count, you see many core SFR markets represented, but then also just ones with very large populations (LA, Riverside).

Below we go state-by-state and highlight the purchase price vs rent along with the gross yields.

Below we go through the top 100 metro areas and show scatterplots of purchase price vs rent; heatmaps of gross yield, median rents, number of acquisitions, and what the average percentile or rental purchase price is compared to all sales of single family homes in the MSA.

To see the rest of the charts below, become a paid subscriber (we show an example of DFW below):

To see the rest, become a paid subscriber:

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This represents approximately 0.16% of the roughly 8 million corporate-owned single-family rentals nationwide. We define "corporate-owned" as properties held by a non-individual entity (corporation, LLC, etc.). Many of these owners are small landlords with just one or two properties in an LLC.

By total count, New York, Chicago, and Houston metros have the greatest number of corporate owned SFR pre-foreclosures.

By State

While it’s expected that the largest metros show the most distress, the concentration in certain Sun Belt and Rust Belt markets is notable:

Florida dominates at the state level with 2,200 pre-foreclosures, almost double the next highest state, Texas (1,367).

Markets With Highest Pre Foreclosures Rates

When we look at pre-foreclosures as a percentage of total corporate SFR properties, we see smaller Florida markets rise to the top along with Trenton and Kiryas Joel.

Many Florida rentals faced flat or declining rents, sharp insurance increases, and home price depreciation, making them particularly susceptible to elevated pre-foreclosure rates.

Baltimore's rate is significantly higher than other markets due to a fraud case in which hundreds of properties from a handful of borrowers are currently in pre-foreclosure.

As shown below, Baltimore has by far the fewest unique owners relative to its pre-foreclosure count. The average pre-foreclosures per owner is 3× higher than in other major metros, driven largely by a single fraud case.

Overall Market

Overall, pre-foreclosure rates for corporate-owned single-family rentals remain very low, with nearly every major metro below 0.50%.

In the coming weeks, we'll take a deeper dive into not just pre-foreclosures but also completed foreclosures, along with other market health indicators: rising inventory, days on market, markets at risk of price depreciation, and areas where rent growth is stalling.

We aggregated room-for-rent data across major online portals and compared it to rental estimates if owners were to rent out the property full-time as a standard long-term rental. We took the listed room price and multiplied it by the number of bedrooms to get a Coliving monthly estimate. While of course there’s nuance (different rooms go for different amounts, there’s often more vacancy in Coliving properties, etc), it’s a helpful rule of thumb to compare rent premiums.

Overall, single-family homes rented out via Coliving had a 28% median premium over the Rent Zestimate.

For larger single-family homes, the premium grows and starts to add up significantly.

One interesting quirk: the majority of rooms listed for rent aren't from investors, but from owner-occupants looking to earn income from unused bedrooms. Coliving prices in this analysis are also pushed down by existing tenants looking for roommates, who typically just split their rent rather than charging a premium.

Properties with more bedrooms are more likely to rent above the Rent Zestimate.

There's a large premium on room prices for 2-bedroom properties, but this levels off for bedrooms 3–5 before jumping again at the 6th bedroom. This is mostly a function of room size.

Outside of a few premium properties, the bulk of rooms rent between $750–$1,250 nationwide, with a strong floor of $700/month in nearly every market.

When broken out by state and metro, more expensive markets typically had lower premiums. We believe this is because many of these listings come from master tenants who aren't charging a premium (they're simply dividing rent among roommates) versus less expensive markets where landlords are doing this opportunistically.

California accounted for 6 of the 10 markets with the lowest premiums.

While the gross premiums are attractive, higher vacancy, turnover costs, and management fees eat into the margin. Financing can also be difficult; many note buyers prefer DSCR loans on standard long-term rentals and view Coliving properties as problematic. Modifications to add bedrooms can hurt resale value, and the management burden is heavier.

Interested in a spreadsheet breaking down city-by-city premiums? Paid subscribers can get it by emailing us at support@sfranalytics.com

Executive Summary

• Flip volumes are flat year-over-year. While down ~15% from the 2021 peak, they remain above pre-2020 levels

• Gross margins are trending towards historic highs

• The average flip was bought at the 20th percentile of local home prices and resold at the 40th percentile (normalized for MSA)

• Flipping, like many aspects of real estate investing, is hyperlocal (in-depth data broken down by MSA is available in the piece)

Methodology

Starting from a foundation of aggregated nationwide deed and mortgage data, our methodology aims to identify true flips: investors who tried to generate profit on a home by buying it, improving it, and reselling it, not just a property that was bought and resold within 12 months which can include various other types of transactions. A few highlights:

• We look at single-family homes and condos that had resales between 7 and 365 days apart. This eliminates double closes from wholesalers, and also excludes some of the larger flips that take >365 days to complete. False positives increase significantly beyond 365 days, mostly concentrated in a few high-cost metros.

• There’s a long list of exclusions: we exclude iBuyers (not traditional flippers, they typically invest less than $10,000 in renovation), builders transferring properties between related entities, foreclosures, and other anomalous transactions.

• We treat flippers who flip in their own name more strictly by excluding individuals who used conventional financing and resold within 12 months, the vast majority of which are not intentional flips.

Metro Trends

There's been considerable geographic diversity in flip activity for the past two years. While Texas has 2 of the top 3 metros, we see representation from the Southeast, Midwest, both coasts, and the Southwest among the top 10 MSAs with the most flips.

For ROI, we calculate gross return (resale price ÷ purchase price). Lower-cost metros tend to show higher ROI because fixed costs represent a larger share of each deal, requiring wider margins to be profitable.

The Rust Belt dominates the high ROI list, with Ohio claiming 5 of the top 15 metros with the highest ROI.

Year-over-year, lower-cost metros also experienced the fastest growth.

Strategies

Flipper strategies vary dramatically by market. We compared the average acquisition price of a flip (at a ZIP code level) to the decile for the average home value in the MSA. We use this to see which markets have flip activity concentrated in lower-cost areas versus higher-cost ZIP codes.

San Francisco, Phoenix, and Nashville have the most diverse activity with the top 15 flipped ZIP codes spanning eight of the top price deciles, meaning that flips are happening both on luxury properties and on smaller, less valuable properties.

Ogden, LA, and Austin had the most concentration of the top ZIP codes for flipping happening in the upper 40th percentile in prices. Meanwhile, Detroit, Jacksonville, and Providence had the most activity concentrated in lower-value ZIP codes.

Comparing acquisition to resale price percentiles, properties typically jump one to two deciles. A common pattern is buying in the 10-20th percentile for the MSA, and reselling it at the 40th-50th percentile. Flippers often buy damaged properties and renovate them to be mid-market properties.

When aggregated nationwide, we can see this pattern clearly: the vast majority of flips are bought in the bottom 30% and resold in the top 50% of their local metro area.

Below is the distribution by purchase price, showing the bulk of flipped properties bought below $300,000, but still sizable amounts bought above $500,000.

Duration

Higher acquisition prices correlate with longer hold times.

Flippers aim to minimize holding costs. The median hold time is 161 days.

In-Depth Metro Breakdown

In the follow charts we break down the top 100 MSAs and show the top zips flips are happening, their hold times, ROI, acquisition volume over their last decade and more.

The first ~20 metro are free, paid subscribers get access to all 100.

Paid subscribers can see the rest below:

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Even though the administration hasn't defined "institutional investor," we’ll use the standard definition of 1,000+ homes owned for this analysis.

As we previously wrote, institutions own a negligible share of homes (near 0%) in most of the United States. However, in specific markets—Atlanta, Charlotte, Phoenix, and Jacksonville—they own a significant share of homes in some neighborhoods.

In some neighborhoods, institutional investors own upwards of 50% of single-family homes.

We analyzed the ZIP codes with the highest institutional ownership of single-family homes—both by count and as a percentage of total housing stock.

There are 15 ZIP codes where institutional investors own 10%+ of all single-family homes, 8 of them in Atlanta. There are 19 distinct MSAs represented, with Atlanta having 29 of the top 100 ZIP codes.

Outside the top 15–20 ZIP codes, institutional ownership drops quickly, falling to around 3% by the middle of the list.

Phoenix houses 11 of the top 100 ZIP codes.

Charlotte hosts 13 of the top 100 ZIP codes.

Atlanta has 29.

And Jacksonville has 7.

This geographic concentration is predictable: institutional investors apply strict acquisition criteria and those properties tend to cluster by price point, size, age, and other characteristics.

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Paid members can download the complete list of homes owned by institutional investors (1,000+ properties)

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While portfolio transactions are down significantly from their peak, roughly 10,000 single-family rental portfolios still get financed each year.

The bulk of activity is on the smaller end with portfolios of 3–9 homes accounting for 85% of transactions over the past five years.

Refis make up the majority of transactions, but 2,000–3,000 purchase deals close each year.

As rates fell, activity surged then tapered by late 2022, settling into a steady state of roughly 800 transactions per month over the past three years.

A handful of metros have seen net increases; Des Moines, Lexington, and Pittsburgh have all grown transaction counts since 2022. Other high-yield metros like Baltimore, Toledo, and Birmingham have held steady.

Meanwhile, hot SFR markets with low gross yields are seeing the sharpest pullbacks. Vegas, Tampa, and Cape Coral all experienced 75%+ declines in portfolio transactions from 2022 to 2025.

Many of these portfolios are financed by local banks and credit unions, but private lenders have stepped up, now closing over 2,000 transactions a year and accounting for nearly 25% of portfolio financings.

Notably, in 2025, private lenders represented 9 of the top 10 portfolio lenders by volume.

While private lenders offer nationwide coverage, they compete in each metro against local banks with established borrower relationships and competitive terms.

In many of the largest metros, local banks still lead in portfolio transaction volume.

For larger SFR portfolio loans, firms like Encore, LendingOne, and CoreVest lead in volume, while Builders Capital, Genesis, and Ascent Developer Solutions focus heavily on BTR and new development.

Paid subscribers will get access to portfolio transactions from Q4 2025 via a link below:

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We analyzed 2025 single-family purchase data across 27,000+ ZIP codes to identify where investors are most active. Key findings:

• Midwest dominates for investor concentration: St. Louis (25.0%), Kansas City (21.9%), Detroit (19.7%)

• Cash remains king: Top markets see 45-60% of investor purchases made in cash

• Investors are clustering in three plays: high-yield affordable markets, vacation destinations, and gentrification bets with redevelopment upside

• Price band effect: 1 in 3 sub-$100K purchases go to investors; 1 in 10 at $500K+

Where Are Investors Most Active?

The pattern is clear: affordable Midwest and Sun Belt markets with median values under $400K attract the highest concentration of investors. These markets still pencil for cash-flow and offer plenty of redevelopment opportunities in older housing stock.

The Hottest ZIPs

The top investor ZIP codes reveal two distinct strategies: ultra-affordable urban cores where investors chase rental yield, and high-end resort markets where investors buy trophy properties.

St. Louis exemplifies the first strategy. North St. Louis County dominates investor activity, but which ZIP is “hottest” depends on how you measure it.

63136 leads the nation in absolute volume: over 1,000 investor purchases, more than any other ZIP code in America.

Right next door, 63137 wins on concentration: 75.5% of all purchases go to investors, the highest rate of any major ZIP. But with 598 investor purchases, it’s actually #2 by volume.

Together, these two adjacent ZIPs account for over 1,600 investor purchases in 2025. At sub-$100K median values, investors can hit gross yields in the mid-to-high teens.

At the other extreme: Snowmass Village, CO (81615), with 71% investor activity at a $7.17M median, the highest price point of any top ZIP.

These aren’t yield plays. They’re wealthy buyers using LLCs for ski-in/ski-out trophy properties with privacy and liability protection, not cash flow.

In markets like Miami’s Wynwood (33127), redevelopment is the play.

Once a warehouse district, Wynwood became an arts destination after murals and galleries transformed it. Now at a $584K median and 61.9% investor share, buyers are betting on continued transformation.

Top ZIPs By Investor Volume

The top 15 ZIPs by volume cluster in just five metros: St. Louis (4), Detroit (5), Baltimore (3), Kansas City, Memphis, Cleveland, and Dallas (1 each).

The Price Band Effect

One of the clearest patterns in the data: investor activity is inversely correlated with home values.

In the sub-$100K band, nearly 1 in 3 purchases go to investors. At these prices, even modest rents generate double-digit gross yields. Often these properties need significant rehab to get them rent-ready.

Investor activity rises again above $1M (12.8%). These aren’t yield plays—they’re LLCs buying trophy homes for privacy, vacation rentals, or speculation.

Below: the full range of median home value vs. investor purchase share.

All Properties Purchased by Investors in 2025

Interested in getting a list of all properties purchased by investors in 2025?

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Stocks dropped immediately: Opendoor, Invitation Homes, Blackstone, and American Homes 4 Rent all fell more than 4%.

Who Is Likely To Be Impacted?

The administration hasn’t defined “institutional investor,” but two pieces of legislation offer likely thresholds.

The Stop Wall Street Landlords Act of 2024 defines it as any investor with net assets exceeding $100 million and the End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act sets the threshold at $50 million.

Assuming a portfolio has 50% debt and an average home value of $400,000, that means investors with ~500+ homes would be impacted. According to a report by the Government Accountability Office, there are 32 firms classified as institutional investors who own ~450,000 homes.

We calculate this number close to 500,000, but regardless it represents only 0.6% of the housing stock.

However, this is heavily concentrated in specific metros. Six firms are by far the largest, holding between 50,000-100,000 homes:

Blackstone: Following Blackstone’s 2023 merger of its Tricon Residential and Home Partners of America portfolios, the combined entity owns ~56,000 homes.

Pretium is heavily concentrated in core Sunbelt markets.

American Homes 4 Rent has more of a West Coast presence, but still strong in the core markets of FL, GA, and TX.

Invitation Homes, one of the earliest institutional investors, has a stronger West Coast footprint (largely from foreclosures acquired over a decade ago).

Amherst skews Midwest, but the same core markets appear.

First Key follows a similar pattern.

All six are heavily concentrated in the same metros. When looking at the US housing market as a whole, institutional homeowners have minimal impact; they own just 0.6% of housing stock and have largely stopped buying since 2022.

But at the local level, the picture is more nuanced. In markets with the heaviest institutional ownership (Atlanta, Charlotte, Phoenix), some individual neighborhoods have over half their homes owned by institutional investors.

However, that’s a highly localized problem that doesn’t materially impact affordability in Boston, San Francisco, Bozeman, and other markets where there’s effectively 0 institutional ownership.

Changing Environment

Since interest rates began rising in 2022, most institutional SFR investors have become net sellers, making the timing of this policy notable given that institutional buying has already largely halted.

In 2024, only 4 traditional institutional investors were in the top 10 homebuyers, purchasing relatively few homes. Most institutional investors have been net sellers over the last 3 years.

Who Actually Owns All The Single-Family Homes?

Of the 17 million single-family rentals, 66% are owned by landlords with just 1-2 properties, 18% by those with 3-5, and 5% by those with 6-10. Overall, 89% of rentals are held by small, local landlords.

As we wrote in a previous post, most markets have no institutional landlord presence and over 90% of the rental stock is from small, local landlords.

See The Row Level Data

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• Opendoor bottomed at $0.51 per share in June before surging 20x to over $10 by September—sparked by Eric Jackson’s Twitter thread arguing for an $82 price target and the retail frenzy that followed.

• After months of declining acquisition volume, the company has started to ramp acquisitions again.

• Purchase price relative to Zestimate shows a strong correlation with gross margin performance.

Leadership Shakeup: The Biggest Story of 2025

But the bigger story hasn’t been the stock price moves—it’s been the complete leadership reset.

The Timeline

Who is Kaz Nejatian?

Nejatian comes from Shopify, where he served as COO. Before that, he founded payments company Kash (acquired in 2017), then held product roles at Meta and Shopify. His compensation structure is notable: a $1 base salary, no cash bonus, and equity that vests only at specific stock price thresholds.

Founder Return

Perhaps more significant than the CEO change is the return of Opendoor’s co-founders to the board. Keith Rabois now serves as chairman, and Eric Wu (Opendoor’s original CEO) rejoined as a director. The company also announced a $40 million PIPE investment from Khosla Ventures and Eric Wu. This “founder mode” return signals a strategic reset—leadership now describes Opendoor as being “refounded” as a software and AI company.

“Opendoor 2.0” Narrative

In November 2025, Nejatian articulated a clear break from the past:

“We are refounding Opendoor as a software and AI company... making a decisive break from the past.”

This isn’t just marketing rhetoric. The company has launched several new products that represent a shift away from pure iBuying:

• Key Connections: Connects partner agents with high-intent sellers (piloted Feb 2025, expanded June 2025)

• Cash Plus: Combines Opendoor’s cash offer with the ability to list with an agent (launched July 2025)

• Key Agent App: AI-powered tools for agent partners

The strategic shift is toward capital-light revenue streams and platform-based monetization rather than relying solely on home purchase spreads.

Acquisitions Are Beginning to Ramp

Acquisitions declined month-over-month through the first half of 2025, bottoming in August.

After several flat months, volume is picking up. Opendoor has started publishing weekly acquisition counts on its website—a signal that management expects the numbers to improve.

Note: Our data uses recording dates, which typically lag contract dates by a few weeks; some fallout between signed contracts and closed acquisitions is expected. Opendoor’s own progress tracker suggests volume approaching 1,000 acquisitions per month by January or February.

The key question: Can the company scale volume without sacrificing margin gains?

Average per-property gross margin in 2025, grouped by acquisition month, shows the pattern clearly: higher-volume months produced worse margins. As the buy box tightened in mid-2025, margins improved.

Management has long understood this dynamic: lower your margin requirements, and more sellers say yes.

One way Opendoor plans to counteract this is by expanding to all markets in the lower 48 states. Instead of just concentrating on major markets, Opendoor is now giving offers throughout the country.

What remains to be seen is how they perform in new markets—performance by metro varies widely.

If Opendoor buys at a large enough discount in new markets, it can offset the risk of entering areas that are likely more difficult to operate in.

Expanding into more markets unlocks significant new demand, allowing Opendoor to increase acquisitions without necessarily sacrificing margin.

Performance Based on Zestimate

We benchmarked Opendoor’s purchase prices against Zillow’s Zestimate at the time of acquisition. It’s an imperfect AVM, but a consistent one.

As anticipated, the larger the spread between acquisition price and Zestimate, the better the gross margin.

While Opendoor clearly bought at deeper discounts in the first half of the year, that trend is now reversing. As Opendoor goes to increase acquisitions significantly, this will be key to watch to see if they’re relying on buying at less of a discount to increase volume.

Ascent Developer Solutions provided a $400 million construction debt facility to Thomas James Homes (TJH). TJH plans to rebuild 100 homes in Pacific Palisades next year following January's fires — this facility supports that effort while also financing other ongoing developments across California.

TJH has been active across LA and Pacific Palisades, having built 60 homes in Pacific Palisades historically. The largest single-lot homebuilder in the US, TJH often targets smaller, older properties like the one below to redevelop into 4,000+ sq ft modern luxury homes.

Once redeveloped the property will look something like:

Opendoor’s Changing Strategy

Opendoor has 117 homes for sale in Atlanta, but the company has been scaling back acquisitions there significantly — from ~9% of total acquisitions at the start of the year to around 2% now. The properties Opendoor is buying seem to be at a strong discount to market — for example, this home in the Atlanta suburbs was purchased for $273,500, more than 10% below most AVMs.

We’ll go more in depth on Opendoor’s updated acquisition strategy in the coming weeks, but overall they’re buying at a deeper discount, especially in product types and metros they’ve been nervous about.

A St. Louis Zip Code Had The Most Homes Purchased By Investors For 2025

Zip code 63136 in North St. Louis led the country in investor purchases this year, with just over 1,000 single-family home sales to investors across 605 distinct buyers.

These purchases were mostly 2-3 bed, 1-2 bath homes with gross yields in the high teens. True operating costs run higher given the age of the housing stock, and rents often stay below $1,400. As we highlighted in a previous post, workforce housing has been outperforming the SFR asset class and posting strong results over the last few years. The median purchase price was <$80,000.

A recently purchased property in 63136 that is a typical investor purchase

The largest lender for buyers here was CoreVest, followed by Nexa and Constructive Capital. Only 41% of purchases were done with financing, the rest with cash. While some flip activity occurs, a lot of these purchases are rentals.

60% of properties purchased were already investor-owned, and 36% went to out-of-state buyers.

Institutional Activity Remains Weak, Purchases Concentrated In Lower Cost Metros

Memphis, Kansas City, Knoxville, and Birmingham are some of the hottest markets where institutions are still buying in. Most institutional SFR investors have been net sellers this year, but pockets of activity remain. The sweet spot: ~2,000 sq ft homes built after 1980, priced around the median for these markets.

We'll be publishing more consistently this year — reply with anything you'd like us to dig into.

Out-of-state investment in single-family homes remains high despite recent cooling:

• Non-resident investors purchased 5.56% of U.S. single-family homes in 2025, maintaining levels comparable to the pre-pandemic baseline of 5.8% (2019)

• While this represents a decrease from 5.74% in 2024 and a significant drop from the 2021 peak of 7.29%, the persistence of elevated non-local investment suggests a lasting shift in residential real estate market dynamics

Methodology

Our analysis identifies out-of-state investment by comparing property deed locations against owner mailing addresses across state lines. To ensure accuracy in measuring genuine out-of-state investment activity, we apply two key criteria:

1. Baseline Definition: The property deed location and owner’s mailing address must be in different states

2. Geographic Filter: We exclude transactions where the deed’s mailing address falls within a 60-mile radius of the purchased property, even if across state lines

This methodology helps isolate genuine out-of-state investment from routine cross-border transactions in interconnected metropolitan regions

Analysis

National Trends: 2019-2025

Out-of-state investment activity has followed a distinct pattern over the past six years:

• Pre-pandemic baseline (2019): 5.8% of single-family purchases

• COVID peak (2021): 7.29% - driven by remote work migration and investor interest in Sun Belt markets

• Post-peak normalization (2024): 5.74% - gradual cooling as interest rates rose

• Current state (2025): 5.56% - continued moderation to near pre-pandemic levels

Metro-Level Analysis

Our analysis of 400+ metropolitan statistical areas reveals significant variation in out-of-state investment activity:

Highest OOS Rates (2025):

• Breckenridge, CO: 34.8% - resort/vacation market

• Brevard, NC: 33.7% - mountain retirement destination

• Jackson, WY: 33.3% - luxury resort market

• Seaford, DE: 26.7% - coastal Delaware beach communities

• Kapaa, HI: 26.7% - Hawaiian vacation properties

Major Metros with Elevated OOS Activity:

• Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL: 19.5% (+1.45pp YoY)

• North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, FL: 20.1% (-0.49pp YoY)

• Memphis, TN: 17.6% (+1.17pp YoY)

• Columbus, OH: 14.5% (+1.63pp YoY)

• Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ: 10.7% (-1.49pp YoY)

Year-over-Year Changes (2024 vs 2025)

Among the top 100 metros by transaction volume, we observed notable shifts:

Largest OOS Increases:

• Birmingham, AL: +2.68pp (8.62% → 11.30%)

• Indianapolis, IN: +1.95pp (4.94% → 6.89%)

• Columbus, OH: +1.63pp (12.91% → 14.54%)

• Toledo, OH: +1.56pp (9.36% → 10.92%)

Largest OOS Decreases:

• Baton Rouge, LA: -4.36pp (5.56% → 1.20%)

• Gulfport-Biloxi, MS: -2.23pp (13.31% → 11.08%)

• Little Rock, AR: -1.90pp (10.30% → 8.40%)

• Wilmington, NC: -1.86pp (11.17% → 9.31%)

• Las Vegas, NV: -1.76pp (13.26% → 11.50%)

Price Segment Analysis

Out-of-state investment varies significantly by property price point:

• Bottom decile (D1): 6.16% OOS rate (avg price $381K) - affordable housing attracting rental investors

• Middle deciles (D4-D7): 4.3-4.7% OOS rate - lowest non-local activity

• Top decile (D10): 9.11% OOS rate (avg price $1.33M) - luxury/vacation property segment

This U-shaped pattern indicates non-local investors concentrate in both affordable rental housing and high-end vacation/investment properties.

Out-of-State Buyer Demographics

Our analysis categorizes out-of-state buyers based on transaction patterns and entity structures:

Large Investor vs Individual Investors

Across all metros, we identify buyers as "large investor" when they complete 10+ purchases annually, versus individual investors with fewer transactions.

Markets with Highest Large Investor Concentration:

• Fayetteville, NC: 79.4% large investor (204 of 257 OOS transactions)

• Trenton-Princeton, NJ: 79.1% large investor (72 of 91 OOS transactions)

• St. Louis, MO-IL: 72.2% large investor (1,396 of 1,934 OOS transactions)

• Peoria, IL: 71.3% large investor (280 of 393 OOS transactions)

Markets with Most Diversified Buyer Base (Individual-Dominated):

• Manchester-Nashua, NH: 3.2% large investor (mostly individual buyers)

• Laconia, NH: 3.6% large investor

• Las Cruces, NM: 4.8% large investor

• Bangor, ME: 5.3% large investor

• Augusta-Waterville, ME: 5.5% large investor

Buyer Segment Categories

• Large Investors: Approximately 30-35% of OOS transactions nationally are conducted by entities with 10+ annual purchases. These are concentrated in Sun Belt rental markets and Midwest value plays.

• Small Portfolio Investors: Individual investors expanding rental portfolios represent 40-45% of activity, particularly strong in affordable markets with favorable rent-to-price ratios.

• Vacation/Second Home Buyers: 20-25% of OOS purchases, concentrated in Florida coastal markets, mountain resort towns, and Hawaiian destinations.

Investment Flow Analysis

Our analysis tracks the geographic sources and destinations of out-of-state investment capital, revealing distinct patterns in where investors are buying and where they're coming from.

Source State Diversification

Investment sources into major markets show significant geographic diversification:

• Florida markets draw from 45-50 unique source states, with no single state representing more than 10% of inbound OOS investment

• Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ receives capital from all 50 states, reflecting its appeal as both a rental investment and retirement destination

• Midwest markets (Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis) attract large investor capital from coastal states seeking higher yields

Notable Inbound Investment Patterns

Top destination markets for out-of-state capital in 2025:

• Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ: 5,465 OOS transactions (10.7% OOS rate) - down from 2024 highs as market cooling continues

• Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI: 3,084 OOS transactions - Midwest value play attracting large investor buyers

• Birmingham, AL: 2,711 OOS transactions (+2.68pp YoY) - strong large investor presence

• Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL: 2,857 OOS transactions - continued Florida market appeal

• North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, FL: 2,675 OOS transactions (20.1% OOS rate) - highest large-metro OOS concentration

Notable Outbound Investment Patterns

Key observations on investor origin patterns:

• California investors continue expanding into Nevada, Arizona, and Texas markets seeking better yields and favorable landlord laws

• New York/New Jersey investors target Florida coastal markets and Sun Belt metros for vacation and rental properties

• Texas-based investors increasingly active in neighboring states as home market becomes more competitive

• Midwest large investor buyers (Ohio, Illinois-based) expanding portfolios into affordable rental markets across the region

Conclusion

The 2025 out-of-state investor landscape shows continued normalization from COVID-era peaks:

• National Rate: 5.56% OOS rate represents a return toward pre-pandemic levels (5.8% in 2019), down from the 7.29% peak in 2021

• Geographic Shifts: Significant YoY increases in Birmingham, Indianapolis, and Columbus suggest large investor capital is pivoting to markets with stronger rent growth potential and less competition

• Cooling Markets: Traditional Sun Belt hotspots (Las Vegas, Phoenix) showing reduced OOS activity as pricing pressure eases

• Large Investor Concentration: Markets like Fayetteville, NC (79.4%) and St. Louis (72.2%) show high large investor presence, while vacation markets remain individual-buyer dominated

• Price Segmentation: U-shaped pattern persists with highest OOS activity in bottom (affordable rentals) and top (luxury/vacation) price deciles

The persistence of elevated non-local investment, even as rates normalize, suggests a lasting structural shift in single-family residential markets. Out-of-state investors—both large investor and individual—have established durable positions in key metros, fundamentally reshaping the ownership landscape of American housing.

Data sources: Public deed records, 2019-2025. Analysis by SFR Analytics.

Zooming in on individual neighborhoods reveals the diversity of deals private lenders are financing. From ground-up construction in exurbs to dense urban pockets where seemingly every fourth property has a DSCR loan, the geographic variation in private lending is vast.

Baltimore

Baltimore is the MSA with the second-highest number of private loans (behind NYC). The ~1/3 mile radius near McElderry Park had the highest concentration, tallying 109 loans YTD.

As the map shows, certain pockets have five or more homes on the same street with active private loans this year. While DSCR activity is strong, there’s a fair amount of construction loan activity as well.

Los Angeles

Far less dense than Baltimore and other older East Coast markets, Los Angeles’s top neighborhood clocked in at just 13 loans YTD.

This gentrifying neighborhood features bread-and-butter flips—small 2-bed, 1,200-square-foot properties with additions and remodels.

Orlando

Clermont, FL—an Orlando exurb—had the highest-density neighborhood in Florida. Activity was almost entirely new home construction, spread across numerous builders and seven different lenders.

San Diego

Rancho Santa Fe, a suburb of San Diego, had the densest private lending activity in the metro. With a median loan size exceeding $3 million, most deals here are luxury ground-up builds and high-end remodels.

These four metros illustrate the wide variety of deals private lenders are financing and how the mix shifts by geography. Each market has distinctly different deal types that pencil.

The table below shows the zip code, city, and MSA for the ~1/3 mile radius with the most loans YTD in each market.

Interested in the geographic boundaries or full nationwide file? Email us!