Perry (IL) Investor Pulse Report (2025-Q4)

Real estate investors hold a significant 16.8% of the 6,543 Single-Family Residential properties in Perry County, IL, totaling 1,096 homes.

Individual investors form the bedrock of the rental market, with 1,390 individuals comprising 95.6% of all landlords, compared to just 64 company entities.

Reflecting their dominance, properties with individual ownership involvement number 1,023, or 93.3% of the entire investor-owned portfolio, while company-owned properties stand at 217 (19.8%). The overlap indicates some properties are co-owned.

The portfolio's funding is almost perfectly balanced, with 553 properties financed and 543 owned outright with cash, suggesting a mix of leveraged growth and stable, long-term holdings.

The primary purpose of these holdings is clear, with 1,023 properties classified as rented, indicating that nearly the entire investor-owned stock serves as rental housing for the community.

In a dramatic reversal of typical market dynamics, landlords in Perry County paid a substantial 47.6% premium for properties in Q4 2025 compared to traditional homeowners. The average landlord acquisition price was $165,944, a full $53,503 higher than the homeowner average of $112,441.

This trend is not an anomaly but a persistent pattern throughout the year. In Q3, landlords paid a 43.8% premium ($149,531 vs. $104,016), and in Q2, the gap was even wider at 75.3% ($130,259 vs. $74,291).

The consistent and large price gap suggests that investors are not competing for the same entry-level housing as homeowners. Instead, they appear to be targeting higher-value properties, potentially those with more bedrooms, larger lots, or multi-unit potential that command higher prices.

While acquisition price data shows a year-over-year increase for landlords from an average of $120,104 in 2024 to $147,897 in 2025, the number of properties associated with these averages in the provided data is zero, indicating a potential data reporting issue for transaction counts.

This counter-intuitive pricing behavior indicates a unique local market where investors are price-makers in a specific property segment, rather than seeking discounts on distressed assets.

Investor activity surged in Q4 2025, with landlords acquiring 30 of the 78 total SFR properties sold in Perry County, capturing a commanding 38.5% market share.

The market's new activity is overwhelmingly fueled by small-scale investors. Landlords with portfolios of 1-10 properties (Tiers 01-04) were responsible for 80.0% of all investor purchases, totaling 24 properties.

New entrants were a major force, as 36 new single-property landlord entities acquired 24 homes, making up the vast majority of mom-and-pop activity and signaling strong local interest in real estate investment.

Mid-size investors also played a role, with one entity in the 11-20 property tier acquiring 5 homes and another in the 21-50 tier purchasing one property.

Institutional investors (1,000+ properties) were entirely inactive in the Q4 market, underscoring that Perry County's investment landscape is defined by local and regional players, not large national corporations.

The ownership structure in Perry County is unequivocally dominated by small investors. Mom-and-pop landlords (owning 1-10 properties) control 87.4% of all investor-owned housing, demonstrating a deeply fragmented and localized market.

First-time or single-holding investors are the most significant group, with the single-property tier alone accounting for 988 properties, or 79.8% of the entire investor portfolio.

The scale of ownership drops off sharply after the first tier. Landlords with 2 properties hold just 1.0%, and those with 3-5 properties hold 2.8%.

Mid-size investors (11-100 properties) represent a niche segment, collectively owning 150 properties, or 12.2% of the investor market.

Contrary to common narratives about corporate landlords, institutional-scale investors (1,000+ properties) have a near-zero footprint in Perry County, owning just 3 properties for a minuscule 0.2% market share.

Ownership by entity type in Perry County reveals a unique and non-linear pattern across portfolio sizes. While individuals dominate the entry-level tier, owning 97.2% of single-property holdings, companies establish majority control in portfolios of just 6-10 properties.

Companies exhibit heavy concentration in the small-to-mid-size tiers. They own 93.6% of properties in the 6-10 unit tier and 96.4% in the 21-50 unit tier, suggesting a strategy of professionalizing operations at a modest scale.

The expected trend of increasing corporate dominance with size is inverted at the higher end. Individuals regain majority ownership in larger portfolios, holding 70.6% of properties in the 51-100 unit tier and 66.7% in the 101-1,000 unit tier.

The initial crossover point where companies first take a majority share is in the 3-5 property tier, where they own 42.9% of homes, but they cement their dominance in the 6-10 property tier.

This unusual structure—individual dominance at the very small and very large ends, with company dominance in the middle—points to a market with distinct paths for scaling, where some individuals maintain large personal portfolios while others opt for incorporation at a much earlier stage.

Investor ownership in Perry County is highly concentrated geographically, with the vast majority of activity occurring within the 62274 and 62238 zip codes.

The zip code 62274 is the epicenter of investor holdings by sheer volume, containing 407 investor-owned SFR properties. This represents a significant 20.0% of all single-family homes in that area.

While smaller in total count, the 62238 zip code exhibits the highest rate of investor penetration. Investors own 60 properties there, accounting for 28.8% of the local SFR market, making it the most investor-dense area in the county.

The remaining zip codes in the county, such as 62272, show much lower levels of investor activity, with only 11 properties owned by investors for a 16.4% rate.

Several zip codes, including 62268 and 62286, had insufficient data to calculate investor ownership rates, but the available data clearly points to a focused geographic strategy by investors within the county.

Investors in Perry County demonstrated an overwhelmingly strong appetite for acquisitions in Q4 2025, acting as decisive net buyers. They purchased 42 properties while selling only 3, resulting in a powerful 14-to-1 buy-to-sell ratio and a net gain of 39 properties for the quarter.

This aggressive accumulation strategy is not a recent development but a sustained trend. For the full year 2025, landlords acquired 121 properties and sold just 18, a buy/sell ratio of 6.7x. This mirrors the activity in 2024, where 121 properties were also bought against 25 sold (a 4.8x ratio).

The quarterly data throughout 2025 reinforces this pattern, with a net gain of 19 properties in Q3 and 27 in Q2, indicating consistent market expansion by investors.

The lack of transaction data for institutional-tier investors suggests their activity is negligible, and this strong net buying behavior is driven entirely by small and mid-size landlords.

This sustained, high-volume net buying signals strong confidence in the local rental market and a clear strategy of portfolio growth among Perry County's investor base.

Investors were a major force in the Q4 2025 market, being involved in 42 of the 115 total SFR transactions, which amounts to a 36.5% share of all market activity.

A massive price disparity exists between the most active buyer tiers. Single-property landlords, who dominated transaction volume with 36 deals, paid an average price of $178,300 per home, indicating purchases of standard, market-rate housing.

In stark contrast, the small-medium tier (11-20 properties) paid an average of only $17,667 across 5 transactions. This extremely low price point suggests these acquisitions were likely for distressed properties, vacant lots, or other non-traditional SFR assets.

Inter-landlord trading appears to be a minor part of the market. Only 5.6% of purchases by single-property investors (2 out of 36) were from other landlords, suggesting most acquisitions are from the traditional homeowner market.

Institutional investors (1,000+ properties) recorded zero transactions in Q4, reaffirming that the county's transaction market is exclusively driven by smaller, local, or regional investors.