Lawrence (SD) Investor Pulse Report (2025-Q4)

Lawrence County's housing market features 3,513 investor-owned SFR properties, comprising a substantial 34.3% of the total 10,253 SFR properties available.

Individual investors overwhelmingly dominate the market, owning 2,825 properties (80.4% of investor-owned SFR), compared to companies holding 855 properties (24.3%). This reveals a market heavily reliant on individual landlord contributions, despite the percentage sum exceeding 100% due to data categorization.

The prevalence of individual landlords extends to entity counts, with 3,879 individual landlords outnumbering 701 company landlords, demonstrating that the vast majority of rental property owners in the county are individuals.

Cash acquisitions are the primary method of holding for investors, with 3,323 properties owned outright, contrasting sharply with only 190 properties being financed. This suggests a preference for debt-free or low-leverage investments in the area.

The investor-owned portfolio is almost entirely rental-focused, with 3,468 properties classified as rented. This near-perfect alignment with the total investor-owned count of 3,513 underscores that properties held by landlords are primarily for generating rental income.

Lawrence County experienced a complete absence of SFR acquisition activity in Q4 2025, with 0 properties purchased by landlords, traditional homeowners, or any other buyer type. This indicates a frozen acquisition market during the quarter.

The lack of any purchases by landlords or traditional homeowners in Q4 means no new pricing data is available to compare acquisition costs between these buyer segments. This prevents analysis of any potential landlord discounts or premiums for the period.

Historical acquisition price trends, including quarter-over-quarter changes or yearly comparisons (e.g., 2024 vs. 2025, or 2020-2023), cannot be assessed due to the absence of any recorded acquisitions across all timeframes provided.

Without any purchase activity, it is impossible to determine if individual or company landlords would have paid different prices for properties in the current quarter or historically.

The absence of data means no price appreciation or decline can be calculated from pandemic-era (2020-2023) to Q4 2025, leaving a significant gap in understanding market value shifts in Lawrence County.

Lawrence County saw a complete halt in the SFR purchase market during Q4 2025, with 0 total SFR purchases recorded. This reflects an unprecedented lack of activity from all buyer types.

Landlords made 0 SFR purchases in Q4 2025, equating to a 0.0% share of all market acquisitions. This signals a complete absence of new investment property acquisitions by landlords in the county.

Given the zero purchase volume, mom-and-pop landlords (Tier 01-04) made 0 acquisitions, accounting for 0.0% of landlord purchases. Similarly, institutional investors (Tier 09) also made 0 purchases, indicating no activity from either small or large-scale investors.

The absence of any purchases by single-property landlords (Tier 01) means no new landlords entered the market in Q4 2025, pointing to a stagnant market for new individual investors.

Due to the zero purchase activity across all tiers, insights into average properties per entity or which tier had the highest concentration of Q4 activity are not ascertainable for Lawrence County.

The investor-owned SFR market in Lawrence County is overwhelmingly dominated by mom-and-pop landlords, with Tiers 01-04 collectively controlling 98.8% of all investor-held properties, totaling 3,624 properties.

Single-property landlords (Tier 01) form the backbone of this market, owning 2,770 properties, which represents 75.5% of the total investor-owned SFR. This highlights the significant role of first-time or small-scale investors.

Mid-size landlords (Tiers 05-08) hold a minimal share of the market, with 34 properties in the 11-20 tier (0.9%) and 11 properties in the 21-50 tier (0.3%). This underscores the concentration of ownership at the lower end of the portfolio size spectrum.

Notably, there is no recorded presence of institutional investors (Tier 09, 1000+ properties) in Lawrence County, with their share reported as 0.0% of investor-owned properties. This contradicts a common national narrative about institutional dominance.

Due to the absence of pricing data by tier, it is not possible to determine how acquisition prices vary between smaller and larger investors, or if larger portfolios command different pricing strategies in this market.

The distribution of ownership by entity type reveals a clear crossover point in Lawrence County: individual investors dominate smaller portfolios, but companies take majority control in mid-sized tiers.

For single-property (Tier 01) landlords, individuals account for 2,354 properties (81.8%), significantly outpacing company ownership at 523 properties (18.2%). This trend continues for two-property landlords, with individuals owning 75.9% (312 properties).

The tipping point occurs in the 6-10 property tier (Tier 04), where companies own 43 properties (68.3%) compared to individuals owning 20 properties (31.7%). This indicates a shift in market structure as portfolio size increases.

Company ownership further consolidates in the 11-20 property tier (Tier 05), where they hold 34 properties (75.6%), while individuals only account for 11 properties (24.4%). This suggests companies are better positioned for or prefer to manage larger, albeit still small, portfolios in the county.

Without acquisition pricing data by owner type within each tier, it's impossible to analyze whether individual or company investors employ different buying strategies or achieve varying price points based on their entity structure.

Within Lawrence County, investor-owned SFR properties exhibit clear geographic concentration, with SD-Lawrence-57754 leading by count, holding 1,399 properties with a 50.0% investor ownership rate.

Following closely in total count, SD-Lawrence-57783 records 1,017 investor-owned properties, though at a lower ownership rate of 20.7%, indicating a larger overall housing stock in that zip code.

Conversely, the highest investor ownership rates are found in SD-Lawrence-57759 (63.8%) and SD-Lawrence-57779 (62.1%), even though their property counts (247 and 254 respectively) are not the highest overall.

The significant difference between top regions by count and top regions by percentage highlights varied market dynamics; some areas have high absolute numbers of investor properties, while others demonstrate a higher saturation of investor ownership relative to total housing stock.

Specific zip codes like SD-Lawrence-57754 and SD-Lawrence-57783 collectively account for 2,416 investor-owned properties out of the identifiable regions, showcasing pronounced geographic concentration of investment activity in Lawrence County.

Lawrence County has no recorded historical transaction data for all landlords, making it impossible to determine overall buy/sell ratios or identify if landlords were net buyers or sellers over any timeframe.

Similarly, institutional investor (1000+ tier) transaction activity is completely absent from the data, preventing any analysis of their historical accumulation or divestment patterns in the county.

The lack of transaction records means that the percentage of purchases from other landlords (inter-landlord transactions) cannot be calculated for any period, leaving a gap in understanding market liquidity and trading within the investor community.

Without historical buy and sell prices, it is impossible to analyze average price comparisons or deduce any implied profit margins from landlord transactions over time.

The absence of historical transaction volumes also precludes any analysis of how market activity, and landlord participation, has changed across different timeframes like Q4, Q3, earlier quarters, or annual comparisons.

Lawrence County experienced a complete cessation of SFR transactions in Q4 2025, with 0 total transactions recorded for the period. This indicates an entirely dormant transaction market for the quarter.

Landlords accounted for 0 transactions, representing 0.0% of all Q4 transactions. This signals a complete absence of buying and selling activity from the investor segment.

Given the zero transaction volume, it is impossible to analyze how transaction volumes varied across investor tiers, as all tiers, including mom-and-pop (Tier 01-04) and institutional (Tier 09), recorded 0 transactions.

The absence of purchases means no average purchase prices by tier can be calculated, leaving no insight into potential pricing strategies or price spreads between different investor sizes for Q4.

Without any recorded transactions, the level of inter-landlord trading activity (properties bought from other landlords) cannot be determined, indicating no observable secondary market activity among investors in Q4 2025.