Charlevoix (MI) Investor Pulse Report (2025-Q4)

In Charlevoix County, landlords collectively own 4,326 Single Family Residential (SFR) properties, comprising a significant 30.7% of the total 14,108 SFR properties in the market. This high penetration underscores the notable presence of investors in the local housing landscape.

Individual landlords are the predominant force, owning 3,207 properties, which accounts for 74.1% of all investor-owned SFR. Companies hold a smaller, yet substantial, 1,245 properties, representing 28.8% of the investor portfolio, highlighting individual investors as the backbone of the rental market in this county.

Remarkably, all 4,326 investor-owned properties in Charlevoix County are held in cash with zero financed properties, suggesting a highly liquid and financially secure investor base or a market where traditional financing for investment properties is uncommon or unrecorded in this dataset.

The investor portfolio is overwhelmingly rental-focused, with 4,269 properties designated as rented, closely aligning with the total investor-owned properties and confirming their primary use as income-generating assets rather than owner-occupied homes.

With 4,453 individual landlords compared to 1,148 company landlords, individuals make up 79.5% of all landlord entities in Charlevoix County, further emphasizing the mom-and-pop nature of the market.

The distinction between individual and company property counts (74.1% vs 28.8%) versus landlord entity counts (79.5% vs 20.5%) reveals that individual landlords, while more numerous, generally own smaller portfolios on average than company landlords, where one entity can manage multiple properties more efficiently.

The high percentage of non-owner-occupied properties reinforces that investor activity in Charlevoix County is primarily driven by a long-term rental income strategy, rather than speculative flipping or secondary home use.

Analysis of acquisition pricing for Charlevoix County reveals a critical data gap: no information on average acquisition prices for landlords, all purchasers, or traditional homeowners is available for any timeframe, including Q4 2025, 2024, or the 2020-2023 period.

The absence of pricing data means that crucial comparisons, such as whether landlords pay more or less than traditional homeowners, cannot be made in Charlevoix County. This limits understanding of investor buying power and market dynamics.

Without historical or quarterly acquisition prices, it is impossible to identify price appreciation or decline trends for SFR properties in the county, hindering insights into market health or investment returns.

The lack of data also prevents an assessment of whether individual or company landlords employ different pricing strategies or secure varying discounts on their purchases.

Consequently, the typical landlord-homeowner price gap, a key indicator of market efficiency and investor advantage, cannot be quantified or tracked in Charlevoix County based on the current dataset.

Charlevoix County's SFR purchase market experienced a complete standstill in Q4 2025, with zero recorded total SFR purchases. This unprecedented lack of activity points to a severely constrained or frozen market for new acquisitions.

Correspondingly, landlords in Charlevoix County made zero purchases in Q4 2025, representing 0.0% of the market. This indicates a complete pause in investor expansion within the county during the quarter.

The absence of any purchase activity extends across all investor tiers; mom-and-pop landlords (Tier 01-04) and institutional investors (Tier 09) both recorded 0 purchases, showing uniform inactivity across investor sizes.

The complete lack of new landlord entries (Tier 01 purchases were zero) signals that Charlevoix County did not attract any first-time SFR investors in Q4, which is a significant finding for market vitality.

Without any purchase activity, insights into the most active investor tiers or average properties per entity by tier for Q4 cannot be generated, as the market was entirely dormant.

Mom-and-pop landlords, defined as those owning 1-10 properties (Tiers 01-04), overwhelmingly dominate the investor-owned SFR market in Charlevoix County, controlling a staggering 98.9% of all investor-held properties. This concentration highlights the local and individual nature of the county's rental housing supply.

The largest segment within this mom-and-pop cohort is the single-property landlord (Tier 01), who collectively own 3,568 properties, representing 79.6% of the entire investor-owned SFR portfolio. This makes individual, first-time, or small-scale landlords the absolute backbone of the market.

In stark contrast, institutional investors (Tier 09, owning 1000+ properties) hold a negligible 0.0% of the investor-owned properties, signaling their complete absence or minimal presence in Charlevoix County. This challenges the common narrative of large corporations dominating local housing markets.

The distribution beyond single-property owners still shows smaller-scale investment, with two-property landlords (Tier 02) holding 469 properties (10.5%) and landlords with 3-5 properties (Tier 03) owning 351 properties (7.8%). This further reinforces the prevalence of small-portfolio investors.

While the data provided does not include acquisition prices by tier for Charlevoix County, the complete lack of institutional presence suggests that any potential pricing advantages or disadvantages for larger investors are irrelevant in this specific market.

The consistent dominance of smaller tiers (01-04) over time, given the overall ownership distribution, indicates a stable market structure heavily reliant on individual and small-scale investors rather than large-scale corporate entities.

Individual investors overwhelmingly dominate the smaller tiers in Charlevoix County, owning 2,728 single-property units (74.4%) and 315 two-property units (66.3%), cementing their role as the primary owners in the entry-level and small-portfolio segments.

The clear crossover point where companies become the majority owners occurs in the 11-20 property tier (Tier 05), where companies own 21 properties (95.5%) compared to just 1 property (4.5%) owned by individuals. This highlights the tier where corporate-scale operations begin to take precedence.

Even in the 3-5 property tier, individuals maintain a strong majority, owning 269 properties (76.4%), which is considerably more than the 83 properties (23.6%) held by companies, demonstrating a sustained individual presence beyond single-unit ownership.

For the 6-10 property tier, individual investors still maintain a substantial lead, owning 29 properties (63.0%) compared to 17 properties (37.0%) held by companies, suggesting individuals are comfortable managing slightly larger portfolios before corporate structures become dominant.

The data provided does not include acquisition pricing differences between individual and company buyers within each tier for Charlevoix County, precluding insights into whether one owner type secures better deals at certain portfolio sizes.

The near-complete absence of institutional-sized (1000+ property) company ownership reinforces that the 'corporate landlord' in Charlevoix County refers to mid-size companies (11-1000 properties) rather than large, national institutional players.

The concentration of company ownership in the larger mid-size tiers (11-20 properties) suggests a strategic shift towards more formalized investment structures as portfolio sizes grow, moving away from individual management.

MI-Charlevoix-49782 stands out as the sub-geography with the highest investor ownership rate in Charlevoix County, with a remarkable 56.9% of its SFR properties being investor-owned. This indicates a high concentration of rental housing in this specific zip code.

Another zip code, MI-Charlevoix-49796, also exhibits an exceptionally high investor ownership rate of 55.1%, further highlighting specific areas within the county where investors have a dominant market presence.

In terms of raw count, MI-Charlevoix-49720 leads with 1,168 investor-owned properties, followed closely by MI-Charlevoix-49712 with 1,132 properties, and MI-Charlevoix-49727 with 794 properties. These zip codes represent the largest volumes of investor-owned housing in the county.

Interestingly, the top regions by count (e.g., 49720, 49712) also show significant, though not always highest, ownership rates (26.8% and 28.3% respectively), demonstrating a balance between total property volume and investor penetration.

Comparing the top regions by count against the top regions by percentage reveals that some zip codes (e.g., 49782, 49796) have high investor saturation even if their total property count isn't the absolute highest, suggesting smaller, highly concentrated rental markets.

The data provided does not include acquisition prices by sub-geography, preventing an analysis of how investment property values vary across these concentrated regions within Charlevoix County.

The varied investor ownership rates across zip codes, from 56.9% down to 23.3% in MI-Charlevoix-49713, signal diverse local market dynamics and differing levels of attractiveness or opportunity for real estate investors within the same county.

Analysis of historical transactions for all landlords in Charlevoix County is currently impossible due to a complete lack of data. No buy or sell transaction counts or average prices are available for any timeframe, including Q4, Q3, earlier quarters, or annual summaries.

Similarly, there is no historical transaction data specifically for institutional investors (1000+ tier) in Charlevoix County. This absence means their buying or selling patterns, and thus their net position in the market, cannot be assessed.

Without transaction data, it's impossible to determine if landlords in Charlevoix County have been net buyers or net sellers over time, or to calculate any buy/sell ratios to understand market direction.

The lack of information also precludes any analysis of inter-landlord transactions, such as the percentage of properties bought from or sold to other landlords, which would normally indicate market liquidity and internal trading dynamics.

Furthermore, without historical buy and sell prices, it is not possible to calculate implied profit margins or understand the price dynamics of properties entering or leaving the investor market.

The complete absence of this crucial data significantly limits insights into investor behavior, market liquidity, and historical activity trends in Charlevoix County.

Charlevoix County recorded zero total SFR transactions in Q4 2025, which naturally resulted in zero landlord transactions. This signals a complete halt in market liquidity and investor activity during the quarter.

The absence of transactions means the landlord share of Q4 activity was 0.0%, indicating that no properties changed hands through purchases or sales involving investors in Charlevoix County.

Both mom-and-pop landlords (Tier 01-04) and institutional investors (Tier 09) registered zero transactions in Q4 2025, showing a uniform cessation of activity across all investor sizes.

Without any purchase transactions by tier, it is impossible to determine average purchase prices by tier for Q4 or to identify which tiers, if any, were most active or paid the most/least.

The lack of transactions also precludes any analysis of inter-landlord trading activity for Q4, as zero properties were bought from other landlords, signifying no internal market churn among investors.

This complete market inactivity in Q4 2025 is a critical finding, suggesting external factors may have temporarily paused real estate transactions for both investors and other buyers in Charlevoix County.