Investors gobbled up roughly one in six homes in the Miami metro area, leading the nation in the percentage of investor-purchased residential properties, according to the latest federal mortgage data.
The study, carried out by Reliable Cash House Buyers, analyzed Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau covering 2023 and 2024 loans from the 71 largest U.S. metro areas.
It found that investors obtained 17% of all residential mortgages in Miami. The national average was far less at 9.4% leads. Only Oklahoma City (17%) and Memphis (15.9%) were comparable to Miami.
"When nearly one in five home purchases in Miami is investor-financed, it fundamentally changes market dynamics for everyday buyers,” Jake Stoddard, Owner of Reliable Cash House Buyers, said in a statement accompanying the report.
“These aren't just statistics, they represent real families competing against investment capital for starter homes,” he said. “Understanding where investor concentration is highest helps both policymakers and homebuyers make informed decisions about which markets offer the best opportunities for owner-occupancy."
READ MORE: Billionaires keep buying homes in Miami. What does that do to the housing market?
The data comes at a time when investor-financed purchases of homes are coming under intense criticism by President Donald Trump.
Trump said last month that he wants to block large institutional investors from buying houses, saying that a ban would make it easier for younger families to buy their first homes.
Trump — who has been under pressure to address voters’ concerns about affordability ahead of November midterm elections — is tapping into long-standing fears that corporate ownership of homes has pushed out traditional buyers, forcing more people to rent. But his plan does little to address the overarching challenges for the housing market: a national shortage of home construction and prices that have climbed faster than incomes.
“People live in homes, not corporations,” Trump said in a social media post as he called on Congress to codify his ban. He repeated the statement Jan. 26 during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
With Trump’s proposed ban, the challenge is that institutional investors are only a tiny sliver of homebuyers, accounting for just 1% of total single-family housing stock, according to an August analysis by researchers at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank based in Washington. The analysis defined these investors as owning 100 or more properties.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
