There’s a lot of chatter right now about investors and what they’re doing in the housing market.

Some headlines make it seem like big Wall Street companies are buying up every home they can find. And if you’re trying to buy a place of your own, it can start to feel like the odds are stacked against you.

But when you actually dig into the numbers, a very different story starts to come into focus.

When you hear the word investor, you probably think of big corporations. And that idea is a big reason why so many people believe they’re buying up all the homes.

Most investors are actually not big companies at all.

They’re just regular people, just like you.

They could be someone with a second home, like a vacation spot by the river, a neighbor who owns one or two rental properties, or even a homeowner who tried to sell but didn’t get the price they wanted and decided to rent it out instead.

When you see all these groups lumped together in headlines, it can make the number of investors seem huge especially if you assume that every investor is a big one.

But when you look at the numbers more closely, here’s what they really show.

Institutional Investors Are a Small Slice of the Housing Market

Big companies, the large institutional investors, actually make up only a tiny portion of the overall housing market.

According to BatchData, the biggest investors—those who own 1,000 or more homes—only have 0.4% of the 86 million single-family homes in the country. In fact, their share of the market is actually getting smaller.

Data from Parcl Labs shows that big investors are selling four homes for every one they’re buying right now (see visual below):

That means they’ve actually put nearly 1,700 homes back on the market recently.

What This Means for You

The message is clear. Instead of snapping up homes left and right, most of these companies are actually stepping back, which means there’s less competition from them than you might think. If you thought they were dominating the market, that should give you some peace of mind.

Most of the competition you’ll run into comes from other everyday buyers—people just like you. And with the big investors pulling back, there could be more opportunities out there than you realize.

Bottom Line

It’s easy to think big investors are taking over the housing market, but the data tells a different story. If you want a local expert’s take on what investor activity really looks like, let’s chat.

Chances are, it’s not as big of a factor as you might think.