Despite an overall cooling of the investor housing market during the first half of 2026, small investors continued to participate, making nearly two-thirds of all purchases.
The share of investor-purchased homes declined by 0.3 percentage points to 10.7 percent in the first half from the same period in 2025, according to an Oct. 21 report from Realtor.com. Investors bought nearly 224,000 homes—a 7 percent decline from the first half of 2025 and the lowest first-half total since 2020.
Identified as corporate entities with fewer than 10 total purchases, small investors accounted for 66.2 percent of all investor purchases during the first half of this year, up from about 50 percent at the COVID-19 pandemic peak in 2021. This is the highest level of small-investor activity in the past 15 years.
Conversely, more substantial investors took a back seat, with mega-investor purchases down by almost 70 percent from the first half of 2021 and large-investor purchases about 40 percent lower during that same period.
Mega investors are corporate entities with 351 or more total home purchases, and large investors have between 51 and 350 total home purchases, according to the report.
“Investor buying eased, but the bigger shift is who is buying,” Realtor.com senior economist Hannah Jones said in the report. “Small investors made up 66.2% of investor purchases, while large and mega investors sold more homes than they bought.”
Jones said mega investors sold nearly 2,500 more homes than they bought in the first half of 2026, a major reversal from 2021, when they bought nearly 50,000 more homes than they sold.
In its September 2025 report, Cross Border International Realty, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, also said institutional investors who expanded their portfolio of single-family homes over the past 10 years were selling more than they purchased.
“The shift does not represent a nationwide liquidation or a guarantee of falling home prices,” the report states. “It does, however, create a more balanced acquisition environment for individual and international buyers.”
The Realtor.com report states that sales by all investors accounted for 9.4 percent of total home sales in the first half of the year, a slight decline from 9.49 percent during the same period in 2025. In total, investors sold 196,000 properties—5.5 percent fewer than in 2025 and the lowest first-half figure since 2023.
The report attributes rising mortgage rates and easing rental prices to the pullback in larger and mega-investor purchases. It notes that in the second half of 2021 and first half of 2022, mega investors bought nearly 18 percent of all investor purchases, compared with just 5.7 percent in the first half of 2026. That translates to about 12,700 mega-investor buys this year versus some 148,000 small-investor purchases.
In terms of where investors were buying, the report states that the more affordable metros across the Midwest and Sun Belt markets are still the most popular regions.
The 10 most investor-heavy markets—including Memphis, Tennessee; Kansas City, Missouri; and St. Louis—showed a median sale price of $275,000, but a median investor purchase price of $174,000. National averages were $375,000 and $295,000, respectively.
At the opposite end, West Coast and Northeast markets remained the least favored markets for investor purchases.
Cross Border Realty’s report notes that the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act may play a role in further reducing mega-investor purchases when it goes into effect in January 2027. The law prohibits investors who own 350 or more homes from buying single-family homes—with some exceptions, including newly constructed build-to-rent communities.
An August 2026 report from lending firm Fund&Grow suggests that first-time homebuyers in states such as Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Arizona, and Tennessee may benefit more from the ROAD to Housing Act, as these states have high concentrations of institutional investors.
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated Realtor.com’s definitions of mega and large investors. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
