Harrison (OH) Investor Pulse Report (2025-Q4)

Landlords in Harrison County own 1,135 Single Family Residential (SFR) properties, constituting 24.8% of the total 4,572 SFR properties in the market. This reveals a significant investor presence within the county's housing landscape.

Individual landlords overwhelmingly dominate the ownership landscape, holding 992 properties (87.4% of investor-owned SFR), while companies own a much smaller share of 150 properties (13.2%). This challenges perceptions of corporate dominance, highlighting the 'mom-and-pop' nature of the local rental market.

The portfolio demonstrates a strong rental-centric strategy, with 1,118 properties (98.5%) classified as rented. This indicates that the vast majority of investor-owned homes are actively contributing to the rental housing supply in Harrison County.

A notable pattern in acquisition strategy is the preference for cash purchases, with 944 properties (83.2%) acquired outright. This suggests a strong financial position or a strategic avoidance of debt by investors, as only 191 properties (16.8%) are financed.

Despite companies owning fewer properties, the ratio of individual to company landlords is 1,336 to 122 respectively, meaning individual landlords are over 10 times more numerous than company landlords, reinforcing the grassroots nature of investment.

In Q4 2025, landlords demonstrated remarkable pricing efficiency, acquiring properties for an average of $60,950. This represents a substantial $85,439 discount, or 58.4% less, compared to the average homeowner acquisition price of $146,389 in Harrison County.

This trend of significant discounts extends across all quarters of 2025. In Q3, landlords paid $103,083 (34.4% less than homeowners), Q2 saw $96,181 (48.8% less), and Q1 recorded $78,406 (54.2% less). This consistent ability to secure properties at considerably lower prices highlights a strategic advantage or different property acquisition focus for investors.

While the pricing data shows a clear advantage for landlords, the aggregated acquisition counts in this section for 2025-Q4, Year 2025, and Year 2024 show 0 properties purchased. This suggests that while prices for landlords were significantly lower when they did buy, these specific aggregated reports didn't capture broader sustained acquisition volumes, possibly indicating highly targeted or infrequent large-scale purchases within those specific timeframes, or an aggregation anomaly given other sections confirm Q4 purchases.

The average acquisition price for landlords during the pandemic-era (2020-2023) was $106,794. While Q4 2025's implied average of $60,950 is significantly lower, suggesting a notable market shift or the acquisition of different property types, the lack of current period volume makes direct trend comparison challenging within this dataset.

The persistent and substantial price advantage for landlords, often paying nearly half or more less than traditional homeowners, indicates sophisticated market insight or a focus on distressed assets and off-market deals.

In Q4 2025, landlords in Harrison County acquired 11 SFR properties, representing 28.9% of the total 38 SFR purchases in the market. This indicates a significant and active role for investors in the current quarter's housing transactions.

The market activity is overwhelmingly driven by mom-and-pop landlords (Tiers 01-04), who accounted for 10 properties, or 90.9% of all landlord purchases during Q4. This reaffirms their position as the primary buying force in the local investor market.

Single-property landlords (Tier 01) emerged as the most active segment, securing 7 properties. Notably, 11 distinct entities made these Tier 01 purchases, suggesting a healthy influx of new or expanding small-scale investors into the market.

Medium-sized landlords also showed activity, with two-property landlords (Tier 02) acquiring 2 properties, and small landlords (Tier 04, 6-10 properties) and small-medium landlords (Tier 05, 11-20 properties) each acquiring 1 property. This diversified activity within the mom-and-pop segment points to varied growth strategies.

In stark contrast to the mom-and-pop activity, institutional investors (Tier 09, 1000+ properties) made no purchases in Harrison County during Q4 2025, underscoring their minimal direct market presence in this period.

The investor-owned SFR market in Harrison County is heavily concentrated among smaller landlords. Mom-and-pop investors (Tiers 01-04, 1-10 properties) control an overwhelming 99.2% of all investor-owned SFR, far exceeding any other segment.

Within the mom-and-pop segment, single-property landlords (Tier 01) form the backbone of the market, owning 941 properties, which accounts for 81.3% of the total landlord-owned SFR. This highlights the prevalence of first-time or very small-scale investors.

The distribution shows a steep drop-off after Tier 01, with two-property landlords (Tier 02) holding 6.9% (80 properties) and small landlords (Tier 03, 3-5 properties) controlling 8.2% (95 properties). This rapid decline in ownership share as portfolio size increases is a defining characteristic of this market.

In stark contrast to the mom-and-pop dominance, institutional investors (Tier 09, 1000+ properties) hold a negligible share, owning just 2 properties (0.2%) of the total investor-owned SFR. This suggests a minimal direct impact from large-scale corporate investors in Harrison County.

Across the remaining mid-size tiers (05-08), ownership is extremely low, with Tiers 05, 06, and 07 each holding only 1 property, and Tier 08 holding 4 properties. This further solidifies the market's structure as largely dependent on small-scale, individual investors.

Specific pricing data by tier for 'All Time', 'Q4', '2024', or '2020-2023' was not available in the provided data, preventing an analysis of how acquisition prices vary across different investor tiers.

Individual investors represent the overwhelming majority of owners in smaller portfolios, with 91.1% of single-property (Tier 01) holdings and 88.8% of two-property (Tier 02) holdings belonging to individuals. This pattern confirms that the foundation of the rental market is built upon individual, rather than corporate, investments.

A significant crossover point occurs at the Small Landlord (6-10 properties, Tier 04) segment, where companies take the majority, owning 68.8% of properties compared to individuals at 31.2%. This signals that larger-scale landlord operations in Harrison County are predominantly corporate entities rather than individuals.

Even in the Small landlord (3-5 properties, Tier 03) tier, individual ownership remains strong at 71.6%, with companies holding 28.4%. This indicates that while companies grow their share, individual investors maintain a substantial presence even in moderately sized portfolios.

The Small-medium (11-20 properties, Tier 05) tier shows 100.0% individual ownership, which is an anomaly given the trend and likely represents a very small sample size. This highlights that while a trend exists, specific tiers might have unique, small-scale situations.

The data suggests a clear progression: individuals dominate the entry and initial growth phases of property investment, while companies emerge as the dominant owner type as portfolios mature into the mid-size range, specifically from the 6-10 property tier upwards.

Investor-owned properties in Harrison County are geographically concentrated, with zip code 43907 leading with 319 properties and 43988 following closely with 247 properties. These two zip codes alone account for a significant portion of the county's investor-owned SFR, suggesting localized hotspots for rental demand or investment opportunities.

While 43907 and 43988 lead in total investor-owned property counts, their ownership rates are 19.3% and 34.4% respectively. This indicates a robust investor presence but also substantial traditional homeowner markets within these areas.

The highest investor ownership percentage is found in zip code 43984, where a remarkable 100.0% of SFR properties are investor-owned. This signifies a unique sub-market entirely comprised of rental units or non-owner-occupied properties, which is a key insight into specific market dynamics within the county.

Other zip codes also show high investor penetration rates: 44693 with 50.0% and 43974 with 45.2% investor ownership. These areas represent markets where nearly half or more of the SFR housing stock is controlled by landlords, indicating strong demand for rental housing or attractive investment conditions.

The distinction between regions with high property counts versus high ownership percentages is crucial. While some zip codes have a large number of investor-owned properties, others have a smaller overall housing stock but a much higher proportion owned by investors, signaling different market characteristics and investment intensities.

Unfortunately, the provided data did not include average acquisition prices by specific geographic regions (zip codes), which limits further analysis into how investor pricing strategies vary across these localized markets.

Landlords in Harrison County are clear net buyers, consistently accumulating properties. In 2025, they purchased 70 SFR properties while selling only 12, resulting in a net gain of 58 properties. This trend signals confidence in the market and an ongoing expansion of rental portfolios.

This net buying activity is consistent across recent quarters. In Q4 2025, landlords bought 17 properties and sold 8, maintaining a net positive position of 9 properties. Similarly, Q3 2025 saw 22 buys against just 3 sells, for a net gain of 19 properties, indicating a sustained growth strategy.

Looking at annual trends, 2024 also exhibited strong net buying, with 54 purchases against 10 sales, yielding a net gain of 44 properties. This multi-year pattern confirms a long-term strategy of asset accumulation among Harrison County landlords.

The absence of data for institutional (1000+ tier) transactions prevents a direct comparison of their activity against the overall landlord market. Therefore, it's impossible to determine if larger investors are also accumulating, divesting, or maintaining a stable portfolio in Harrison County based on this dataset.

Without explicit data on the percentage of buy or sell transactions originating from or going to other landlords, a comprehensive understanding of inter-landlord trading activity and market liquidity cannot be fully assessed within this section. Similarly, average buy and sell prices by timeframe are not available here, precluding an analysis of implied profit margins.

Landlords were significant players in Harrison County's Q4 2025 transaction landscape, participating in 17 of the total 58 SFR transactions, which represents a 29.3% market share. This highlights their active role in shaping the quarter's real estate dynamics.

The transaction volume was almost entirely driven by mom-and-pop landlords (Tiers 01-04), who accounted for 16 transactions. This further emphasizes their dominant influence on both purchases (as seen in Section 7) and overall market activity.

Single-property landlords (Tier 01) were the most active, conducting 11 transactions. They also recorded the highest average purchase price among the active tiers at $66,500, suggesting that smaller, likely owner-operator landlords are acquiring properties at a higher valuation relative to other investor types.

Other small landlord tiers showed limited activity; two-property landlords (Tier 02) completed 4 transactions at an average price of $41,750, and small landlords (Tier 04, 6-10 properties) completed 1 transaction at $82,250. Institutional investors (Tier 09) registered no transactions in Q4.

Inter-landlord trading was minimal across the recorded transactions, with Tier 01 being the only segment showing any, with 3 out of 11 transactions (27.3%) originating from other landlords. Tier 02 and Tier 04 reported 0% transactions bought from other landlords, suggesting that most Q4 landlord acquisitions came from traditional homeowners or other non-landlord sellers.

The significant price spread between Tier 01 ($66,500) and Tier 02 ($41,750) indicates varying property types or acquisition strategies even within the smaller investor segments, with entry-level landlords potentially paying more for individual properties.