Legislation to ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes to rent is making its way through Congress, but many of them are already selling thousands of homes — and have been for two years.
Research from housing data and analytics firm Parcl Labs shows that the largest investors are now net sellers of homes.
In every major metropolitan housing market, investors make up a larger share of for-sale listings than they do of the total housing stock. In some cities, like Dallas, Philadelphia and Houston, they are selling most aggressively. Dallas investors own 9.2% of the housing stock but account for 22.8% of new for-sale listings.
“It’s a volatile housing market, and folks are trying to take risk off the table,” said Jason Lewris, co-founder of Parcl Labs. He noted that rents are not holding up relative to what investors can get if they sell.
“So it’s better risk-adjusted returns to just get that cash and see how things pan out,” he said.
