Union (GA) Investor Pulse Report (2025-Q4)

Investors have a substantial footprint in Union County, GA, owning 4,493 Single-Family Residential properties, which constitutes 31.2% of the total 14,403 SFRs in the market.

The investor landscape is overwhelmingly composed of individual owners rather than corporations. Individuals own 4,092 properties, accounting for 91.1% of the investor portfolio, compared to just 455 properties (10.1%) held by companies.

The vast majority of investor-owned properties are utilized as rentals, with 4,439 of the 4,493 properties designated as rented or non-owner-occupied, a penetration of 98.8%.

Investors in this market heavily favor cash purchases over financing. The portfolio includes 3,640 properties owned with cash, more than four times the 853 properties that are financed, indicating low leverage among landlords.

The market is highly fragmented, with 6,103 distinct landlord entities owning the 4,493 properties, underscoring the prevalence of small, single-property owners.

Investors in Union County demonstrated an extraordinary ability to acquire properties at a deep discount in Q4 2025. They paid an average price of $260,931, which is 54.6% less than the $575,261 paid by traditional homeowners—a massive price gap of $314,330.

This price advantage for landlords widened dramatically over the course of the year. The discount swelled from a range of 28%-35% in the first three quarters of 2025 to the 54.6% high in Q4, suggesting a shift in market dynamics or investor acquisition strategy.

The significant discount suggests that investors are not competing for the same properties as traditional homebuyers. They are likely targeting distressed assets, off-market deals, or properties requiring substantial renovation that are priced well below market rate.

Despite the Q4 dip in purchase price, the overall price trend shows appreciation. The average landlord purchase price for all of 2025 ($288,135) is higher than the average for 2024 ($250,656), indicating rising asset values in the region.

The extreme discount in Q4 may be influenced by a small number of very low-priced transactions, but it highlights a clear and consistent pattern of investors paying significantly less than the general market.

Landlords were a formidable force in the Q4 2025 housing market, purchasing 46 of the 101 total SFR properties sold, which amounts to a 45.5% market share of all transactions.

The acquisition activity was almost entirely driven by small-scale investors. Mom-and-pop landlords (1-10 properties) accounted for 47 of the 48 properties purchased by investors, representing 97.9% of the activity.

The market is seeing a continuous influx of new participants, with 62 new single-property landlord entities entering the market in Q4 alone. These new entrants were responsible for acquiring 41 properties.

Institutional investors (1,000+ properties) were completely absent from the purchasing landscape in Q4, making zero acquisitions. This underscores that Union County is a market for Main Street investors, not Wall Street firms.

Outside of the smallest tiers, buying activity was minimal, with only a single property purchased by a mid-size investor (51-100 property tier), reinforcing the market's highly fragmented nature.

The ownership structure of investor-held real estate in Union County is overwhelmingly dominated by mom-and-pop landlords. Those owning 1-10 properties (Tiers 01-04) control a combined 98.9% of the entire investor-owned SFR portfolio.

First-time or single-property landlords form the bedrock of this market. This tier alone accounts for 3,957 properties, representing 84.9% of all investor holdings.

In stark contrast, institutional investors with portfolios of over 1,000 properties have a virtually nonexistent footprint, owning just 2 properties, which rounds to 0.0% of the investor market share.

The path to scale appears limited, as even mid-size investors (11-1,000 properties) collectively own only a tiny fraction of the market, at approximately 1.1% of properties.

This distribution reveals a highly fragmented market composed of thousands of individual owners, challenging any narrative of corporate landlord consolidation in this specific geography.

Individual investors are the primary owners across most portfolio sizes, particularly at the smaller end. They own 91.6% of all single-property investor holdings and over 87% of portfolios containing 2 to 5 properties.

A significant strategic shift occurs once a portfolio grows beyond five properties. In the 6-10 property tier, company ownership surges to 46.3%, a dramatic increase from just 13.0% in the preceding tier.

This crossover point indicates that as landlords scale, the strategic benefits of incorporation—such as liability protection and access to commercial financing—become a key consideration, prompting them to formalize their operations.

While companies gain share at larger tiers, the overall market remains dominated by individuals due to the sheer volume of owners with fewer than five properties.

The data clearly illustrates a professionalization journey for landlords in Union County, where moving from an individual to a corporate structure is a key step in expanding a real estate portfolio.

Investor ownership in Union County is geographically hyper-concentrated, with the 30512 zip code alone accounting for 4,047 of the 4,493 investor-owned properties, representing 90.1% of the total investor portfolio.

While 30512 leads in raw volume, the 30572 zip code demonstrates the highest market saturation. In this area, investors own 44.2% of all SFRs, a significantly higher penetration rate than any other part of the county.

The data reveals a key distinction between volume and density. The primary market of 30512 shows widespread investor activity with a 31.0% ownership rate, whereas the smaller market of 30572 is a hotspot of intense investor focus.

Beyond these two zip codes, investor presence drops off dramatically, with areas like 30560 and 30582 having only 124 and 58 investor-owned properties, respectively.

This geographic distribution indicates that investor strategy in Union County is not uniform but rather targeted, focusing immense resources on a few key areas while largely ignoring others.

Investors in Union County are firmly in an accumulation phase, demonstrating overwhelming net buyer behavior. In Q4 2025, they purchased 71 SFRs while selling only 3, resulting in a net portfolio gain of 68 properties.

The buy-to-sell ratio for the quarter was an exceptionally high 23.7-to-1, signaling a strong conviction to expand holdings rather than liquidate assets.

This aggressive buying is part of a larger trend of accelerating activity. The 377 properties purchased by investors in 2025 marks a 65.4% increase over the 228 properties acquired in the entirety of 2024.

The extremely low sales volume from existing landlords—just 24 properties sold throughout 2025—points to a widespread 'hold' strategy, reducing the available inventory of investor-owned properties for sale.

Consistent with other findings, there was no transactional data for institutional investors, confirming their inactivity in this market.

Investors played a pivotal role in market liquidity during Q4 2025, participating in 71 of the 170 total SFR transactions, a market share of 41.8%.

Transaction volume was dominated by the smallest investors, with new or single-property landlords (Tier 01) conducting 62 of the 71 investor purchases (87.3%).

An inverse relationship between portfolio size and purchase price emerged in Q4. The smallest landlords (Tier 01) paid the highest average price at $271,983, while more established small landlords (Tier 03) paid an average of just $70,000, suggesting new entrants may be paying a premium to enter the market.

The market for inter-landlord trading is very thin. The most active buyers (Tier 01) sourced only 3.2% of their new properties from other landlords, indicating that the primary source of inventory is traditional homeowners.

Institutional investors (Tier 09) registered zero transactions, cementing their status as non-participants in Union County's active real estate market.