Decatur (IA) Investor Pulse Report (2025-Q4)

The investor footprint in Decatur County, IA is minimal, with landlords owning just 5 single-family residential properties, which constitutes only 0.4% of the 1,198 total SFRs in the market.

Ownership is led by individual investors, who control 3 properties (60.0%), compared to companies which own the remaining 2 properties (40.0%).

This small-scale ownership is reflected in the landlord entity count, where 4 individual landlords operate alongside 2 company landlords.

A significant majority of the investor-owned properties are held free and clear, with 4 of the 5 properties (80.0%) being cash-owned, while only 1 is financed.

The portfolio is clearly rental-focused, with 3 of the 5 properties identified as rented, underscoring the primary strategy for the few investors in this market.

Due to extremely low transaction volume, there is no available data on landlord acquisition prices for Q4 2025 or preceding quarters in Decatur County.

The absence of landlord purchase activity makes it impossible to compare their acquisition costs against those of traditional homeowners or to establish any pricing trends.

Historical data for the 2020-2023 period also indicates a complete lack of purchase activity, with 0 properties acquired by landlords during that time.

This lack of data is itself an insight, highlighting a market that is not currently active for investor acquisitions.

The fourth quarter of 2025 saw no acquisition activity from real estate investors in Decatur County, with 0 properties purchased by this group.

This lack of activity means landlords accounted for 0.0% of the 10 total SFR properties that were sold in the county during Q4.

Consequently, there were no new entrants into the market, as the single-property (Tier 01) landlord count for new purchases was zero.

Activity was nonexistent across all investor sizes, with both mom-and-pop (Tiers 01-04) and institutional (Tier 09) segments recording 0 purchases.

The data points to a dormant quarter for investor buying in a market characterized by very low velocity.

The investor market in Decatur County is exclusively composed of small-scale operators, with mom-and-pop landlords (1-10 properties) owning 4 of the 5 investor-held SFRs, an 80.0% share.

Single-property landlords form the largest segment, controlling 3 properties for a dominant 60.0% share of the total investor portfolio.

The remaining ownership is split between a small landlord (3-5 properties) and a small-medium landlord (21-50 properties), each holding 1 property (20.0%).

There is no presence from large-scale or institutional investors (Tier 09), underscoring the local, small-scale nature of real estate investment in the county.

Due to the lack of transactions, no meaningful price analysis by tier is possible for any recent timeframe.

Individual investors are the primary owners across the smallest portfolio tiers in Decatur County. They own 100% of the properties in the small landlord (3-5 properties) category.

Even in the single-property tier, individuals hold the majority, owning 2 of the 3 properties (66.7%), while a company owns the remaining property (33.3%).

This distribution highlights that company ownership is present but does not dominate at any portfolio size within this market.

There is no crossover point where companies become the majority owners, as the market scale is too small to support larger portfolio tiers where this typically occurs.

No pricing data is available to compare acquisition strategies or price points between individual and company investors.

Geographic concentration of investor properties in Decatur County is minimal and localized. The zip code IA-Decatur-50144 contains the highest number of investor-owned homes, with a total of 3 properties.

This count in 50144 represents an investor ownership rate of just 0.7%, indicating a very low penetration rate even in the most active area.

The highest rate of investor ownership is found in zip code IA-Decatur-50262, at 1.3%, though this is based on a single investor-owned property in that area.

The data illustrates that investor ownership is not widespread, but rather confined to a few properties scattered across a couple of zip codes.

There is no recorded historical transaction data for landlords in Decatur County, which points to a market with very low or nonexistent liquidity for investment properties.

Without transaction records, it is impossible to determine if landlords have been net buyers or net sellers over time.

Similarly, analysis of landlord-to-landlord transactions cannot be performed, as there is no data on the source of purchases or destination of sales.

The lack of data extends to all investor types, including the institutional (1000+ tier), confirming their absence from the transactional market.

This data gap is a key characteristic of the market, defining it as one where investment properties are rarely traded.

In Q4 2025, the investor community was completely inactive in the Decatur County transaction market, accounting for 0 of the 18 total SFR transactions.

This lack of participation resulted in a 0% market share of transactions for landlords during the quarter.

Transactional inactivity was consistent across all portfolio sizes, with 0 transactions recorded for mom-and-pop tiers and 0 for institutional tiers.

Consequently, there is no data to analyze inter-landlord trading activity, as no landlords were recorded buying from other investors.

The absence of purchases also means there is no Q4 average purchase price data to analyze buying strategies or price points by tier.