The death of investor buying has been greatly exaggerated, according to the latest data from CoreLogic.
- Investor purchases of single-family homes, percentage-wise, have held steady at around 26% for the last six months.
Dips. During the pandemic craziness, investor purchases did briefly climb over 28% before falling to 21% in the summer of last year. However, even at the low of the pandemic (21%) it was still two points above the baseline for the prior two years.
Mega-Investors Fade. Mega-investors are purchasing about 6,000 homes a month in December, down from 11,000 at the start of the year and well down from the 25,000 they were purchasing at the peak in July 2021.
- Small investors, who make up 48% of investor purchases, bought the most homes in the final month of 2022 with 36,000 purchases, down from 47,000 to start the year and down from the peak of almost 70k in June 2021.
- Purchase activity for medium and small investors fell to 27,000 and 6,000, respectively.
iBye. iBuying, which had its own conspiracy theory before the market slowed, has absolutely plummeted. In the late summer of 2021, iBuying jumped above 6% of all investor purchases. However, by September of last year, iBuying made up 1.2% of all investor purchases which is below the pre-pandemic norm of around 3.0%.
BOTTOM LINE: Investor activity is falling back to pre-pandemic norms which, after the last two years, can give the impression that it is disappearing.