Brunswick (NC) Investor Pulse Report (2025-Q4)

Investors have a significant footprint in Brunswick County, owning 23,400 Single-Family Residential properties, which constitutes 29.7% of the total 78,860 SFRs in the market.

Individual investors are the primary force, owning 17,819 properties (76.1%), while company-owned entities hold the remaining 6,016 properties (25.7%). This distribution underscores the market's reliance on smaller-scale investment over large corporate ownership.

A clear preference for unleveraged assets is evident, as cash-owned properties (14,464) significantly outnumber financed ones (8,936). This suggests that a majority of investor capital in the area is deployed without reliance on traditional lending.

The investor base itself is overwhelmingly composed of individuals. There are 26,878 individual landlords compared to just 4,393 company landlords, reinforcing the 'mom-and-pop' character of the local rental market.

The portfolio is almost entirely dedicated to rental purposes, with 23,239 of the 23,400 investor-owned properties being rented. This high rental concentration highlights the primary strategy of investors in the region as providing long-term housing supply.

In a striking reversal of typical market dynamics, landlords in Brunswick County paid significantly more than traditional homeowners in Q4 2025, with an average acquisition price of $626,192 compared to the homeowner average of $507,319.

This represents a 23.4% premium, or a staggering $118,873 more per property, paid by investors. This pattern suggests investors are targeting higher-value properties, new construction, or homes with specific features that command higher prices than the general housing stock.

The Q4 premium is not an anomaly but rather a persistent trend throughout 2025. Landlords paid a 26.6% premium in Q3 ($131,585 difference) and a 26.0% premium in Q2 ($121,110 difference), indicating a consistent strategy of acquiring more expensive assets.

This sustained premium paid by investors signals intense competition for desirable rental-grade properties and a willingness to outbid traditional homebuyers for strategic acquisitions.

Comparing recent prices to the 2020-2023 average of $532,586 reveals significant price appreciation, with Q4 2025 prices showing a 17.6% increase over the pandemic-era boom, reflecting continued strength and investor confidence in the local market.

Landlord purchasing activity reached a fever pitch in Q4 2025, with investors acquiring 393 of the 900 SFR properties sold, a commanding 43.7% market share.

Small investors were the engine of this growth, as mom-and-pop landlords (Tiers 01-04) purchased 349 properties, making up 85.5% of all investor acquisitions for the quarter.

The market saw a significant influx of new participants, with 471 distinct entities purchasing their very first investment property. These new entrants collectively bought 303 homes, representing 74.3% of all landlord purchases in Q4.

In stark contrast, institutional investors (1,000+ properties) had a negligible impact on the acquisitions market, purchasing only 2 properties, which accounts for just 0.5% of the investor total.

The data reveals a market dominated by new and small-scale landlords, indicating a grassroots expansion of the rental market rather than a top-down corporate consolidation.

The ownership structure in Brunswick County is overwhelmingly dominated by small-scale investors. Mom-and-pop landlords (owning 1-10 properties) control a combined 93.1% of all investor-owned SFRs.

The most granular level of ownership is also the largest, as single-property landlords (Tier 01) alone hold 19,749 properties, representing 82.0% of the total investor portfolio. This highlights that the rental market is primarily supported by individuals with a single investment property.

Mid-size landlords (11-1,000 properties) collectively own 6.4% of the investor-held housing stock, indicating a sharp drop-off in ownership concentration as portfolio sizes increase.

Despite national narratives, institutional investors (1,000+ properties) have a minimal presence, owning just 115 properties. This accounts for only 0.5% of the investor market, demonstrating their limited influence in Brunswick County.

This distribution firmly establishes the local rental market as being built on a foundation of small, independent landlords rather than large, consolidated corporate entities.

A distinct crossover point in ownership structure occurs as portfolio sizes grow. While individuals are the dominant force in smaller tiers, companies become the majority owner in portfolios of 6-10 properties, holding 143 homes (72.2%) in that tier.

For entry-level investors, individual ownership is the clear preference. In the single-property tier, individuals own 16,330 properties (81.2%), compared to just 3,780 owned by companies.

The trend toward corporate ownership accelerates in larger tiers. In the 11-20 property tier, companies own 60.2%, and this increases to 76.1% in the 21-50 property tier, signaling a strategic shift to corporate structures for liability and management as portfolios scale.

Even within the smallest tiers, companies maintain a foothold, owning 18.8% of single-property investments and 21.4% of two-property portfolios, suggesting some investors start with a corporate structure from their first purchase.

This pattern reveals a clear lifecycle: investors often begin as individuals and transition to a corporate entity as their holdings expand beyond a handful of properties.

Geographic analysis reveals intense concentration of investor activity in specific areas of Brunswick County. The top 5 zip codes by investor-owned property count are 28465 (5,256), 28461 (3,105), 28469 (3,050), 28451 (2,977), and 28462 (2,881).

The zip code 28465 is the epicenter of investment, where landlords own 54.2% of all SFR properties. This is nearly double the county-wide investor ownership rate of 29.7%.

There is significant overlap between areas with the highest count of investor properties and those with the highest percentage. Four of the top five zip codes by count (28465, 28469, 28462, 28452) are also in the top five for ownership rate, indicating deep saturation in these key submarkets.

The concentration is stark: the top zip code (28465) alone holds 22.5% of all investor-owned properties in the entire county.

This data points to a targeted investment strategy, with investors focusing capital and acquisition efforts on a few key neighborhoods rather than spreading them evenly across the county.

Investors are in a strong accumulation phase, consistently buying far more properties than they sell. In Q4 2025, landlords purchased 587 properties while selling only 67, resulting in a net gain of 520 properties and a buy-to-sell ratio of 8.76 to 1.

This aggressive buying behavior was sustained throughout the year. For all of 2025, investors executed 2,609 purchases against just 262 sales, demonstrating strong, long-term confidence in the Brunswick County market.

The transaction velocity shows a slight moderation from the previous year, where 3,053 properties were purchased in 2024, but the net positive acquisition trend remains firmly intact.

Institutional investors (1,000+ tier) mirrored this net-buyer trend but on a much smaller scale. For the full year of 2025, they acquired 5 properties and sold only 1, indicating a marginal but positive growth position.

The high volume of net buying across all landlord types signals a market where investors are actively expanding their portfolios rather than divesting or trading assets.

Landlords were a major force in the Q4 2025 market, involved in 587 of the 1,481 total transactions, a market share of 39.6%.

A massive price disparity exists between investor tiers. Single-property landlords paid the highest average price at $616,656, while institutional investors paid an average of $271,616. This 56.0% price difference suggests vastly different acquisition strategies, with smaller investors buying premium-priced homes and institutions targeting lower-cost assets.

The activity was heavily skewed towards mom-and-pop landlords (Tiers 01-04), who were responsible for 528 of the 587 landlord transactions during the quarter.

Inter-landlord trading appears low for new market entrants. Only 9.3% of the properties purchased by single-property landlords (44 out of 473) were bought from another landlord, indicating they are primarily buying from homeowners or developers.

In contrast, larger investors show a higher tendency to buy from peers. For instance, half of the properties purchased by landlords in the 101-1,000 tier were sourced from other landlords, suggesting a more mature and interconnected market at higher portfolio levels.