Investors pulled back hardest in Florida, while West Coast buying revived
United States housing investors shifted their weight away from Florida and toward the West Coast in late 2025, with Orlando posting the steepest drop in investor purchases among major metros even as Seattle led the country on gains, a new Redfin analysis showed.
The report found overall investor activity remained subdued, with purchases rising just 2% year over year in the fourth quarter to just under 50,000 homes across 38 large metros. That's the eighth straight quarter of only marginal change.
Beneath that flat national line, Redfin data pointed to a geographic split between metros where investors were leaning in and those where they were quietly backing away.
“Investor home purchases are up by double digits in West Coast cities including Seattle, Portland, OR and San Francisco, and down by double digits in some Florida cities,” the report said.
In Seattle, investor purchases jumped 37% year over year, the biggest increase of any major US metro, while Orlando posted a 16% decline, the largest drop in the dataset.
Redfin said the divergence partly reflected where the numbers still worked. Nationwide, “it doesn’t make financial sense for flippers or landlords to buy property in much of the country” as high prices and rates squeezed both individual buyers and investors.
In expensive West Coast markets, however, prices climbed beyond what many local households could afford, bolstering rental demand and “motivating landlords to buy property,” including some betting that AI hiring and return‑to‑office mandates would revive San Francisco demand.
“Some investors are keeping their pocketbooks closed, which eliminates competition for everyday first-time buyers,” Chen Zhao, Redfin’s head of economics research, said.
“The pandemic-era investor frenzy that crowded out so many first-time homebuyers has largely fizzled. There are still obstacles for buyers, like high costs, but investors are no longer one of them–at least in many parts of the country.”
In Florida, investors confronted a different calculus. Redfin pointed to skyrocketing insurance and HOA costs as climate disasters increased, softer rents and rising inventory, all of which made it “harder to turn a profit” and “tougher to flip a home and earn money.”
Meanwhile, in a separate analysis, Cotality pointed to a cluster of Florida metros – from Cape Coral–Fort Myers to West Palm Beach–Boca Raton–Delray Beach – as most at risk of price declines over the next 12 months.
Even so, investors remained a significant presence. Redfin estimated they bought about 18% of homes sold in the fourth quarter, flat year over year. They also tilted further upmarket, with high-end purchases up 5% versus a 2% uptick in mid-priced homes and flat activity at the low end. They also increased their focus on single-family properties while cutting townhouse buys 8%.
Policy noise grew louder around the same time. President Donald Trump proposed banning institutional investors that already owned more than 100 single-family homes from buying additional properties, aiming to free up supply for individual buyers.
However, analysts noted that large institutional players controlled only a small slice – roughly 1–3% – of the single‑family stock nationwide, limiting how much such a ban could reshape affordability.
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