Home purchasing activity among investors has reached the highest level in the past two decades. The increase isn’t from the big institutional buyers of recent years, but from more smaller investors entering in.
Investors appear to be homing in on the starter home tier for their purchases, which is giving first-time home buyers more competition.
By the end of 2018, the investment rate in the U.S. housing market stood at 11.3%—the highest rate in CoreLogic’s records, dating back to 1999.
Following the Great Recession, large institutional investors made up the bulk of investment activity. But that has shifted as more smaller investors have started stepping in.
Small or “mom-and-pop” investors—those who purchase 10 homes or fewer—have grown from 48% of all investor-purchased homes in 2013 to more than 60% in 2018.
The markets with the highest investor activity in 2018, according to the report are:
