December 2025 SFR Deal Highlights
TJH secures $400M for California rebuilds, Opendoor pivots strategy, and a St. Louis zip code leads investor purchases
Thomas James Homes Secures $400m Construction Debt Facility
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.