Congress just banned the country’s biggest landlords from buying another house, so we pulled the numbers on investor owned homes by state to see who actually owns what. Investors hold about 18 percent of America’s 86 million single-family homes, and 92 percent of those homes belong to small owners with one to five properties, not Wall Street.[1]
Investors own roughly 16 million single-family homes, but the companies targeted by the new federal ban control just 0.59 percent of the nation’s houses.
Wyoming and Maine lead the country in investor ownership, both around 30 percent, and vacation homes, not corporate rentals, drive their numbers.
Missouri has the highest share of homes sold to investors, at 18.9 percent of purchases, while Oregon has the lowest at 5.3 percent.
Big institutions were already retreating before the ban: their purchases are down about 70 percent from the 2021 peak, and they have sold more than they bought for nine straight quarters.
Investors bought roughly one of every three homes sold early this year, yet their actual purchase count hit a nine-quarter low. The share is high because everyone else stopped buying.
The map, the full 50-state table, and the newest quarterly numbers from the property-data firms and federal auditors who track this are below.
What percentage of US homes are owned by investors?
Investors own about 18 percent of the 86 million single-family homes in the United States, roughly 16 million houses, according to property-data firm BatchData.[1] The same data shows 92 percent of those homes belong to mom-and-pop owners with one to five properties, and owners with fewer than ten hold 96 percent.
The Census Bureau’s survey data tells a matching story from a different angle: renters live in about 15.8 percent of occupied single-family homes, about 14.4 million of 91.2 million.[9] The two numbers measure different things. The gap between them tells its own story below.
Who owns America’s roughly 16 million investor-owned single-family homes: share of the investor-owned stock by portfolio size. Tiers overlap slightly where owners span sizes, so they do not sum to exactly 100%.
1-5 properties92% · 14M+ homes
6-10 properties4% · 597,000 homes
100-1,000 properties1.7% · 264,000 homes
1,000+ (institutional)2.18% · 338,000 homes
Source: BatchData Investor Pulse, Q1 2026. Ownership stock, not purchases.
Which states have the most investor-owned homes?
Wyoming and Maine top the list, both around 30 percent of single-family homes investor-owned, followed by Alaska, Montana, and Hawaii, all near 27 percent.[1] Notice the pattern. These are tourism states, not the Sun Belt markets you hear about in the news.
Here’s why: “investor-owned” counts any home held by an absentee owner or a business entity, and in tourist states that mostly means vacation homes and short-term rentals. Maine shows the gap plainly. Around 30 percent of its single-family homes are investor-owned, yet only 8.9 percent of its occupied houses are rented out, and about a fifth of its housing stock sits vacant or seasonal for much of the year.[9]
By raw count, the big states win, as you’d expect. Texas has about 1.4 million investor-owned homes, California 1.27 million, and Florida about 1 million, and together with North Carolina and Georgia those five states hold about a third of all investor-owned homes in the country.[1] Minnesota has the lowest investor share at 8.89 percent.
What “investor-owned” means in a vacation state: Maine, the two numbers side by side.
30.3%of Maine single-family homes are investor-ownedBatchData, ownership stock
8.9%of Maine’s occupied single-family homes are actually rentedCensus ACS, occupied homes
The gap is vacation country: about a fifth of Maine’s single-family stock sits vacant or seasonal, and absentee second-home owners count as investors.
Sources: BatchData Investor Pulse Q1 2026; Census Bureau ACS 2024 1-year estimates, table B25032.
Where are investors buying the most homes?
Missouri leads the nation, with investors making 18.9 percent of home purchases, and Mississippi and Nevada round out the top three.[2] The Midwest and South dominate the buying map. Cheap houses and steady rents beat expensive coastal markets where the math doesn’t work.
At the other end sits Oregon, where investors made just 5.3 percent of purchases, with Washington and New Hampshire close behind.[2] Investors also shop below the market almost everywhere. Nationally their median purchase ran $287,000 against $370,000 for all buyers, and in Michigan they paid $118,000 against a $252,000 state median, less than half.[2]
In a few states investors buy above the market instead. Montana investors paid 35.1 percent over the state median and Utah investors 33.7 percent over, a sign they’re chasing luxury and short-term rental properties, not starter homes.[2]
Map: investor home purchases by state, ranked. Shading shows the share of homes BOUGHT by investors in the newest state-level quarter, darkest = highest (Missouri, 18.9%). This is purchase flow, not ownership.Investor share of home purchases by state, shaded by the percentage itself, from Oregon’s 5.3% up to Missouri’s 18.9%. Purchase flow, not ownership stock.
Source: Realtor.com deed-record analysis, state appendix (Q2 2025, the newest published state table). Corporate-entity investor definition.
The table below shows every state plus DC: the share of home purchases made by investors, how many homes that was, what investors paid, and how far under or over the overall median they bought.[2] Sort it however you want.
Investor home purchases by state: all 50 states plus Washington, D.C., ranked by the share of home sales bought by investors in the newest published state-level quarter. This is purchase flow, not ownership; Arizona and Nevada investor medians are suppressed in the source (–). Click a header to sort.
Rank
State
Share of purchases
Investor purchases
Investor median
Overall median
Gap
1
Missouri
18.9%
6,534
$194,000
$268,000
-27.8%
2
Mississippi
17.1%
1,322
$256,000
$271,000
-5.5%
3
Nevada
15.4%
2,494
–
$487,000
–
4
Indiana
14.3%
5,015
$153,000
$252,000
-39.3%
5
Alabama
14.2%
3,172
$172,000
$243,000
-29.4%
6
Utah
14.1%
2,011
$667,000
$499,000
33.7%
7
Oklahoma
13.5%
2,074
$136,000
$227,000
-39.9%
8
Texas
13.4%
19,344
$251,000
$325,000
-22.6%
9
Kansas
13.3%
1,538
$237,000
$299,000
-20.9%
10
Hawaii
13.2%
524
$707,000
$697,000
1.5%
11
New Jersey
13.1%
3,511
$420,000
$532,000
-21.0%
12
Montana
12.5%
704
$574,000
$425,000
35.1%
13
Arizona
12.3%
4,624
–
$448,000
–
14
Ohio
12.0%
5,048
$152,000
$243,000
-37.7%
15
Kentucky
11.7%
1,845
$192,000
$253,000
-23.8%
16
North Carolina
11.7%
6,276
$253,000
$356,000
-28.8%
17
Pennsylvania
11.6%
4,642
$172,000
$285,000
-39.8%
18
Louisiana
11.2%
1,449
$142,000
$238,000
-40.5%
19
Arkansas
11.1%
1,348
$184,000
$248,000
-26.1%
20
Florida
11.1%
12,881
$349,000
$383,000
-8.7%
21
Idaho
11.1%
1,280
$409,000
$423,000
-3.2%
22
Tennessee
11.0%
3,958
$229,000
$330,000
-30.8%
23
Wyoming
10.9%
296
$316,000
$344,000
-8.2%
24
Maryland
10.3%
2,317
$231,000
$424,000
-45.4%
25
New York
10.3%
3,249
$554,000
$493,000
12.3%
26
South Carolina
10.2%
2,667
$260,000
$330,000
-21.1%
27
District of Columbia
10.1%
186
$715,000
$699,000
2.2%
28
Iowa
9.8%
1,544
$137,000
$223,000
-38.4%
29
North Dakota
9.5%
310
$258,000
$286,000
-9.9%
30
New Mexico
9.4%
824
$282,000
$326,000
-13.6%
31
Maine
9.2%
357
$399,000
$395,000
1.0%
32
Georgia
9.0%
4,339
$311,000
$348,000
-10.5%
33
Delaware
8.9%
383
$238,000
$407,000
-41.4%
34
Colorado
8.5%
2,431
$513,000
$547,000
-6.2%
35
Illinois
8.5%
3,626
$224,000
$303,000
-26.3%
36
California
8.2%
7,162
$909,000
$737,000
23.3%
37
South Dakota
7.8%
78
$229,000
$294,000
-22.3%
38
Michigan
7.7%
2,674
$118,000
$252,000
-53.1%
39
Nebraska
7.6%
658
$212,000
$278,000
-23.8%
40
Virginia
7.6%
2,576
$230,000
$418,000
-45.0%
41
Vermont
7.5%
158
$382,000
$370,000
3.2%
42
Rhode Island
7.2%
189
$391,000
$467,000
-16.3%
43
Wisconsin
7.2%
1,664
$175,000
$296,000
-40.7%
44
Connecticut
7.1%
671
$327,000
$415,000
-21.3%
45
Massachusetts
7.1%
1,335
$559,000
$632,000
-11.5%
46
Minnesota
6.9%
1,591
$280,000
$338,000
-17.4%
47
West Virginia
6.6%
309
$157,000
$238,000
-33.8%
48
Alaska
6.3%
190
$331,000
$403,000
-18.1%
49
New Hampshire
6.2%
243
$384,000
$483,000
-20.4%
50
Washington
5.7%
1,530
$571,000
$596,000
-4.2%
51
Oregon
5.3%
769
$413,000
$493,000
-16.2%
–
USA
10.8%
135,920
$287,000
$370,000
-22.4%
Source: Realtor.com deed-record analysis, state appendix (Q2 2025). Corporate-entity investor definition; individual-name buyers not counted.
How much of the housing market are investors really buying?
Between 11 percent and 32 percent, depending on who’s counting. That spread is the story. Four major data firms all measure the share of homes investors buy, and they get four different answers.
Why? They each count a different kind of buyer. Realtor.com counts only corporate entities like LLCs and trusts and finds 11.3 percent of purchases,[3] while Redfin counts business buyers across 38 big metros and finds 18 percent.[4]
Cotality counts anyone who owns three or more properties and finds 27.7 percent.[5] BatchData counts all investors, down to the landlord next door, and finds 31.85 percent.[1]
Every one of those numbers is real. So when one headline says investors buy a tenth of America’s homes and another says a third, they’re both quoting good data with different definitions.
What almost no headline mentions: the investor share is high partly because regular buyers left the market. Investors bought 236,053 homes in the first quarter of the year, a nine-quarter low, down 22.9 percent from a year earlier.[1]
Every number in the investor debate on one scale. Each dot is a real published figure: who counts, of what universe, and whether it measures owning or buying.
0%32%
Institutional (1,000+ homes)0.35% OWN of ALL US housing stock · Bank of America
The ~140 firms at the law’s 350+ line0.59% OWN of single-family homes · Parcl Labs
Institutional (1,000+ homes)2.18% OWN of INVESTOR-owned homes · BatchData
Institutional investors~3% OWN of single-family RENTALS · GAO
Corporate entities (LLC, LP, trust)11.3% BUY of a full year’s purchases · Realtor.com
Business buyers, 38 large metros18% BUY of fourth-quarter sales · Redfin
Buyers who own 3+ properties27.7% BUY of March purchases · Cotality
All investors, incl. mom-and-pop31.85% BUY of first-quarter purchases · BatchData
Sources: Bank of America (via UBS, Jan 2026); Parcl Labs (Mar 2026); BatchData (Q1 2026); GAO; Realtor.com (2025); Redfin (Q4 2025); Cotality (Mar 2026).
Is Wall Street really buying up all the houses?
No. The institutional landlords everyone pictures own a sliver of the market: roughly 140 companies control about 530,000 homes, 0.59 percent of the nation’s single-family stock, fewer than one house in 170.[6] A Bank of America analysis from January puts institutional holdings at 0.35 percent of all housing stock and about 3 percent of single-family rentals.[14]
Fact-checkers keep having to untangle this. When a member of Congress said nearly 27 percent of homes were being bought by investors, framing them as Wall Street hedge funds, PolitiFact rated it Half True: the purchase number was credible, but the Wall Street framing wasn’t, and buying is not owning.[12]
The biggest names, Invitation Homes with about 80,000 rentals and American Homes 4 Rent with about 60,000, have lately been selling more homes than they buy. So have the big private-equity-backed operators.
The trend runs against the popular story too. Big investors with 350 or more purchases went from 16.3 percent of investor buying in 2021 to 7.5 percent last year, their smallest slice since 2011, while mom-and-pop investors grew from about half to 61.3 percent.[3]
Share of investor purchases made by mega-investors (350+ purchases) versus small investors (fewer than 10), 2015 through 2025.
Source: Realtor.com deed-record research, share of investor purchases by portfolio size, 2015–2025.
What does the new law on investor home buying actually do?
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law on July 11, 2026, and it bars any company controlling 350 or more single-family homes from buying more.[10] The provision’s title in the law says it plainly: “Homes are for people, not corporations.” The ban takes effect January 7, 2027, and violations carry fines of 1 million dollars or three times the purchase price, whichever is bigger.
Two details get lost in the headlines. Nobody has to sell anything: the law blocks new purchases but requires no divestiture, so the roughly 530,000 homes big landlords already own stay put.[10][6] And build-to-rent projects are exempt, along with renovate-to-rent programs that put at least 15 percent of the purchase price into fixing up homes that don’t meet code.[10]
Here’s the twist: the companies it targets were already leaving. Their purchases were down about 70 percent from the 2021 peak before the ban passed,[3] and they had sold more than they bought for nine straight quarters.[1]
Then came the president’s January executive order.[11] Within a month, mega-investor buying dropped from about 250 homes a week to about 100.[5] Cotality, the property-data firm, titled its market report “Did institutional investors ban themselves?”
How the investor home-buying ban became law, in four steps.
Jan 20, 2026Executive order: stop Wall Street buying Main Street homes
Jun 22-23, 2026Senate passes 85-5; House 358-32
Jul 11, 2026Becomes law without the president’s signature
Jan 7, 2027Ban takes effect (350+ homes, no forced selling)
Sources: White House (EO 14376); Latham & Watkins client alert on S.2651 / H.R.6644.
Where institutional buying actually bites
The national numbers are small, but the local ones aren’t. Atlanta is the epicenter: large investors own 71,625 homes there, 4.2 percent of the metro’s single-family stock, and in four Atlanta zip codes they own 12 percent or more of all the houses.[6] In parts of south Atlanta, one of every four homes listed for sale belongs to an institutional owner.
Government auditors watched the same clustering happen in real time. Between 2018 and 2024, institutional investors added about 16,000 homes each in Phoenix and Dallas, growth of 177 percent and 114 percent, and more than doubled their holdings in Jacksonville and Nashville.[7] Even so, they ended that stretch owning between under 1 percent and 3 percent of all single-family homes in those metros.[7]
One more wrinkle keeps those homes off the family market. When investors sell, they increasingly sell to each other: investor-to-investor deals climbed from about 27 percent of transactions in 2019 to 37 to 39 percent by late last year, while sales from investors to regular owner-occupants fell to about a fifth.[6]
The ban stops big landlords from buying. It doesn’t route their houses back to families.
Where the 350-plus-home investors actually concentrate: share of ALL single-family homes they own in the eight most concentrated large metros. Ownership stock, not purchases.
Atlanta4.2% · 71,625 homes
Memphis3.8% · 15,215 homes
Jacksonville3.6% · 18,950 homes
Charlotte3.4% · 28,494 homes
Las Vegas2.7% · 16,209 homes
Tampa2.6% · 24,636 homes
Orlando2.6% · 19,154 homes
Indianapolis2.6% · 16,856 homes
Source: Parcl Labs analysis of investors at the law’s 350-home line, reported with metro counts by The New York Times (Apr 2026). National average for these firms: 0.59% of single-family homes.
Methodology: where these numbers come from
No government dataset tracks investor-owned homes by state, so this article names its source and definition next to every number. Ownership stock figures come from BatchData’s Investor Pulse report, which analyzes county assessor and deed records across 86 million single-family properties; its most recent edition covers the first quarter of 2026.[1] State purchase shares come from Realtor.com’s deed-record analysis, whose newest full state table covers the second quarter of 2025;[2] its investor definition catches corporate entities (LLC, LP, trust) and misses individuals buying under their own names.
Redfin’s purchase tracker covers 38 large metros. Cotality counts any buyer who owns three or more properties.
The institutional slice uses Parcl Labs’ entity-resolution analysis at the law’s own 350-home line,[6] GAO’s audits of institutional single-family rental ownership,[7][8] and a Hamilton Project study of mega-landlords.[13] Renter-occupancy shares come from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 2024 one-year estimates.[9] One trap worth naming: Realtor.com’s research tier called “350 or more purchases since 2015” is not the same population as the law’s “controls 350 or more homes,” so we never mix the two.
Renter-occupied shares: Census ACS 2024 1-year, table B25032
Law status: enacted Jul 11, 2026; effective Jan 7, 2027 (S.2651 / H.R.6644)
Because these firms revise between editions, small gaps between states are noise. We treat sub-point differences as ties throughout.
Bottom line
The investor story is really three stories. Small landlords own most of the 16 million investor-held homes and keep buying. Wall Street owns about half a percent of America’s houses, and it was already backing out when Congress banned it from buying more.
Still, in a few Sun Belt zip codes, that half percent is every fourth for-sale sign. If you’re house hunting, the state table above matters more than the national debate: in Missouri, roughly one in five homes sells to an investor, while in Oregon it’s about one in twenty.
Frequently asked questions
How many properties does the average investor own?
The average small investor owns about 3 properties. Owners of one to five properties hold 92 percent of all investor-owned single-family homes in the country, and owners with fewer than ten hold 96 percent. The Wall Street landlord with a thousand houses is real but rare, controlling about 2 percent of investor-owned homes.
What percent of US homes are owned by institutional investors?
Institutional investors own between 0.35 percent and 3 percent of homes depending on the definition. Firms with 1,000 or more properties hold about 0.35 percent of all housing stock and about 3 percent of single-family rentals. At the new law’s line of 350-plus homes, about 140 companies own 0.59 percent of US single-family houses.
Who are the biggest institutional investors in single-family homes?
The biggest single-family landlords are Invitation Homes, with about 80,000 rental houses, and American Homes 4 Rent, with about 60,000, followed by Progress Residential and FirstKey Homes. All four sold more homes than they bought in recent quarters, part of a nine-quarter institutional retreat.
When does the ban on investors buying houses take effect?
The ban takes effect on January 7, 2027, under the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which became law on July 11, 2026. It stops companies controlling 350 or more single-family homes from buying more, with exceptions for build-to-rent construction. It does not force anyone to sell homes they already own.
Are investors buying all the houses?
Investors bought about a third of the homes sold early this year, but not because they went on a spree. Their purchases fell to 236,053 in the first quarter, a nine-quarter low, down 22.9 percent from a year earlier. The share climbed because regular buyers, squeezed by prices and mortgage rates, pulled back even faster.
US Government Accountability Office. “Rental Housing: Institutional Investor Ownership of Single-Family Rental Homes (GAO-26-108675).” 2026. www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108675
US Government Accountability Office. “Rental Housing: Information on Institutional Investment in Single-Family Rental Homes (GAO-24-106643).” 2024. www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106643
Chris Kolmar has been in the real estate business for almost ten years now. He originally worked for Movoto Real Estate as the director of marketing before founding HomeSnacks.
He believes the key to finding the right place to live comes down to looking at the data, reading about things to do, and, most importantly, checking it out yourself before you move.
If you've been looking for a place to live in the past several years, you've probably stumbled upon his writing already.
