Investors stepping up amid crunch in housing supply, affordability 

The issues impacting housing supply and affordability in the U.S. have led to a stubbornly sluggish housing market that is likely to result in another year of fewer than 4 million home sales.

But investors are doing their part in alleviating the inventory crunch — and in some markets, they are even helping to fill the affordability gap, according to a new report on investing trends and takeaways from real estate investment marketplace New Western.

Local investors are outpacing new home builders: One major theme the report identifies is that small, local mom-and-pop real estate investors — specifically, home flippers — are adding more affordable homes to the market than new home builders. So far in 2025, investors have fixed and flipped 30,852 renovated single-family homes compared to 18,973 new homes delivered by builders in the markets covered by New Western.

And there is still plenty of inventory left for home flippers. In the major metro markets that cover New Western's territory — which include Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles, to name a few — there are over 2.8 million vacant homes, which are ripe for the fix-and-flip pipeline. Many flips start off-market, meaning buyers don't see the property until it has been renovated, the report notes.

The large inventory of vacant and flipped homes presents many opportunities for agents who can help identify prospective projects and sell completed ones for investors. Investor resales generated over $900 million in real estate agent commissions in the first quarter of 2025, New Western researchers found.

Tackling 'the institutional myth' of corporate investors: The report also offers investor demographic data, noting, "The new real estate investor isn't a faceless institution — they're often your neighbor." There is meanwhile a "surge of women, younger generations, and first-time real estate investors" stepping into the market, researchers wrote, bucking the notion that investors are large corporate entities or private equity. 

Institutional investors accounted for just under 2% of all home purchases during the first quarter of the year, representing "a nearly invisible share of total market activity," New Western researchers said. But even when drilling down deeper into investor purchase data, institutional buyers accounted for just 6.6% of investor purchases, while smaller local and independent investors represented over 93% of all investment purchases.

Identifying investor strategies and impact: Adding to the small-scale investor narrative, nearly 80% of the 1,164 investors surveyed by New Western in June said they plan to buy between one and five properties in the next 12 months. Meanwhile, nearly 70% of respondents said they plan to invest in properties within 30 miles of where they live, signaling that the majority of flippers are locals who have strong knowledge of their market. 

Flippers outpaced new builders by wide margins in Boston (307%), Philadelphia (355%) Pittsburgh (494%), Los Angeles (658%) and St. Louis, Missouri (691%), major cities where it is typically pricier and more difficult to build new. However, flipper and new home builder deliveries were much closer in metros like Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Raleigh, North Carolina, and Tampa, Florida.