Marion (SC) Investor Pulse Report (2025-Q4)

Individual landlords overwhelmingly dominate the SFR investment landscape in Marion County, owning 2,054 properties, which accounts for a significant 92.5% of all 2,221 investor-owned SFR properties. Companies, in contrast, hold a much smaller share at 207 properties, representing just 9.3% of the total investor portfolio.

The investor market in Marion County exhibits a unique financial characteristic: 100% of all 2,221 investor-owned SFR properties were acquired through cash, with no properties recorded as financed. This suggests a highly liquid and perhaps less leveraged investor base in the region.

Further emphasizing the rental focus, 2,199 of the 2,221 landlord-owned properties are currently rented, translating to an almost complete (99.0%) non-owner-occupied rate for investor holdings. This indicates that nearly all investor acquisitions are primarily intended for rental income generation.

There are a total of 2,419 distinct landlord entities operating in Marion County. Individual landlords account for the vast majority of these entities, with 2,253 individuals (93.1%) compared to just 166 (6.9%) company landlords, reinforcing the prevalence of smaller-scale investors.

The high proportion of individual landlords (93.1% of entities) compared to their slightly lower property share (92.5%) suggests that individual landlords, on average, hold slightly fewer properties per entity than company landlords in this market.

Marion County recorded zero distinct SFR properties purchased by landlords in Q4 2025, 2024, and 2020-2023, making it impossible to establish current acquisition price trends or compare them to traditional homeowners. This complete absence of recent acquisition activity signals a stagnant or extremely quiet market for real estate investors.

With no recorded landlord purchases in the current quarter or recent years, determining how the landlord-homeowner price gap has evolved quarter-over-quarter is not feasible. The lack of data for both landlord and homeowner purchases in recent periods prevents any meaningful price differential analysis.

Similarly, without any recorded transactions in Q4 2025 or 2024, it is impossible to determine if individual and company landlords pay different prices in Marion County. The acquisition pricing section currently reflects no active market for recent periods.

The sole historical data point for landlord acquisitions indicates 0 properties were purchased at an average price of $156,450 between 2020-2023. This limited information provides no basis to assess price appreciation from the pandemic-era to Q4 2025, as there's no comparative recent activity.

The complete absence of acquisition data for the current quarter and recent annual periods (2024, 2025 Q4) for both landlords and homeowners indicates a highly inactive market, preventing any analysis of acquisition velocity or consistency of landlord discounts over time.

In Q4 2025, Marion County recorded zero total SFR purchases by any buyer type, including landlords. This complete lack of purchasing activity for landlords means their share of the market was 0.0%, signaling an extremely quiet or frozen real estate market for investors during this period.

Given the absence of any landlord purchases in Q4 2025, it is impossible to determine which investor tiers were most active in purchasing properties. All purchase tiers, including Mom-and-Pop (Tier 01-04) and Institutional (Tier 09), recorded zero transactions.

The analysis shows no new landlords (single-property, Tier 01) entered the market in Q4 2025, as zero properties were acquired across all tiers. This indicates a complete pause in new investor entries and expansion during the quarter.

With no Q4 purchase data, it's not possible to assess how many entities were active in each tier during this specific quarter, nor to calculate the average properties per entity for Q4 purchases.

The lack of Q4 activity means no tier demonstrated a highest concentration of purchases, as all tiers recorded zero acquisitions. This uniform inactivity across the board suggests a broader market trend rather than tier-specific behavior.

Mom-and-pop landlords, encompassing portfolios of 1-10 properties (Tiers 01-04), exert overwhelming control over the investor-owned SFR market in Marion County, holding a combined 98.5% of all properties. This translates to 2,043 properties across these smaller investor segments.

Single-property landlords (Tier 01) represent the bedrock of the investor market, owning 1,776 properties, which alone accounts for a substantial 78.0% of all investor-owned SFR. This highlights the prevalence of first-time or small-scale investors.

In stark contrast to the mom-and-pop dominance, institutional investors (Tier 09, 1000+ properties) have no presence in Marion County, controlling 0.0% of investor-owned SFR. This defies common national narratives about large institutional buying, showing a highly localized market structure.

Due to a lack of available pricing data by tier, it is not possible to determine how acquisition prices vary across investor tiers or if larger investors pay more or less than smaller ones in Marion County.

The market is largely composed of smaller entities; for example, Tier 01 (single property) contains the highest number of landlords. Without specific entity counts for each tier, further analysis on average portfolio size per entity across all tiers is limited, but the overall distribution points to a highly fragmented market.

Comparing current tier distribution to historical data is challenging due to the absence of detailed historical tier data. However, the current figures strongly suggest a long-standing, stable market structure heavily reliant on local, small-scale investors.

Individual investors overwhelmingly dominate the smaller portfolio tiers in Marion County, with 1,641 properties (91.9%) in the single-property (Tier 01) segment and 197 properties (96.1%) in the two-property (Tier 02) segment, clearly establishing them as the backbone of small-scale investment.

The crossover point where company ownership surpasses individual ownership occurs within the 21-50 property tier, where companies own 25 properties (51.0%) compared to individuals' 24 properties (49.0%). This indicates a shift towards corporate investment at larger portfolio sizes.

Even in the 11-20 property tier, companies hold a majority, owning 4 properties (66.7%) compared to individuals' 2 properties (33.3%). This trend suggests that as portfolios grow beyond 10 properties, corporate structures become increasingly prevalent.

The lack of specific pricing data for individual versus company acquisitions within each tier prevents a comparative analysis of their buying strategies or price discrepancies in Marion County.

The highest concentration of individual ownership is clearly in Tier 02 (two-property) with 96.1%, while the highest company concentration is observed in Tier 11-20 at 66.7%, and then again at 51.0% in the 21-50 tier, indicating where corporate strategies are more effective.

Without historical data for growth patterns by owner type, it is not possible to compare how individual and company portfolios have evolved over time, but the current distribution strongly favors individual investors for smaller portfolios and companies for larger ones.

Within Marion County, the zip code 29571 stands out with the highest number of investor-owned properties, totaling 1,007 SFR properties. This represents 27.3% of the SFR market within that specific sub-geography, making it a key hub for investor activity by volume.

While 29571 leads in property count, the zip code 29519 shows the highest investor ownership rate, with a remarkable 100.0% of its SFR properties being investor-owned. This indicates a complete market saturation by investors in that specific, albeit likely smaller, area.

Conversely, without a specific list of the lowest investor ownership rates, it's not possible to pinpoint the bottom 5 sub-geographies. However, regions like 29571 (27.3%) and 29574 (29.9%) represent areas with relatively lower investor penetration compared to the highest percentage regions.

The provided data does not include acquisition prices by geographic region, preventing any analysis of how prices vary across these specific sub-markets within Marion County.

The top five regions by investor-owned count (29571, 29574, 29546, 29581, 29565) collectively account for a significant portion of the county's investor activity. For instance, 29571 and 29574 alone make up 1,866 properties, highlighting a strong geographic concentration.

There is some correlation between high count and high percentage regions: 29581 (120 properties, 39.3% rate), 29546 (160 properties, 32.3% rate), and 29574 (859 properties, 29.9% rate) appear in the top 5 for both metrics, indicating areas of both high volume and high investor penetration.

The lack of data on landlord entities per region prevents analysis of landlord density or the distribution of individual versus company landlords across these sub-geographies.

Marion County reports zero historical buy or sell transactions for all landlords, making it impossible to determine if they are net buyers or sellers overall. This complete absence of data for past activity signals a long-standing quiet market or data unavailability for this specific region.

Similarly, institutional investors (1000+ tier) also show zero recorded historical transactions. Consequently, their net position (accumulating or divesting) cannot be assessed, further highlighting a market devoid of large-scale investment activity.

Given the complete lack of transaction data, the percentage of buy or sell transactions occurring between landlords (inter-landlord activity) cannot be calculated. This metric would typically indicate market liquidity among investors, which remains undeterminable.

Without any recorded buy or sell transactions, it is impossible to compare average buy prices to average sell prices for all landlords or for institutional investors. Therefore, any insights into implied profit margins from historical transactions are unavailable.

The consistent absence of transaction data across all listed timeframes (Q4, Q3, earlier quarters, annual, and All Time) for both all landlords and institutional investors means no trends can be identified regarding transaction volume changes or shifts in buy/sell ratios over time.

Marion County recorded zero total SFR transactions in Q4 2025, which means landlord transactions also stood at zero, resulting in a 0.0% landlord share. This signifies a complete halt in market activity for the current quarter, offering no data on investor participation.

Due to the absence of any Q4 transactions, it is not possible to analyze how transaction volumes vary across investor tiers or to identify which tiers were most active. All tiers recorded zero activity during this period.

With no Q4 purchases, there is no data to determine average purchase prices by tier, making it impossible to assess if certain investor sizes pay more or less for properties in the current market.

The lack of Q4 transaction data also means no inter-landlord trading activity was recorded. This prevents any analysis of how many properties were bought from other landlords or what percentage of transactions involved existing investors.

Without any recorded purchase prices, the price spread between the highest and lowest tier cannot be determined for Q4 2025, further illustrating the inactive nature of the market.

Similarly, the absence of Q4 transactions prevents identifying which tier might have had the highest inter-landlord purchase percentage, as all transaction metrics are at zero.

The current lack of transaction activity contrasts sharply with the existing ownership distribution, which shows a significant number of landlord-owned properties (2,221). This suggests that while landlords hold a substantial portion of the market, they were not actively transacting in Q4 2025.