Rich (UT) Investor Pulse Report (2025-Q4)

Landlords control a substantial 82.4% of all 2,170 SFR properties in Rich County, UT, totaling 1,788 investor-owned units, highlighting a highly concentrated investor market.

Individual landlords collectively own the majority of investor-held SFR properties, with 1,310 units (73.3%), compared to company-owned portfolios at 485 properties (27.1%), reflecting a mom-and-pop investor landscape.

Every single investor-owned SFR property in Rich County is designated as rented (1,788 properties), signaling a universal non-owner-occupied strategy among landlords.

A significant 85.1% of landlord-owned SFR properties (1,521 properties) were acquired through cash transactions, suggesting strong financial positioning and lower reliance on traditional financing compared to 267 financed properties (14.9%).

Individual investors also lead in entity count, with 1,738 individual landlords representing 78.5% of all 2,214 landlords, further emphasizing their foundational role in the county's rental market.

Rich County experienced a complete halt in landlord acquisition activity in Q4 2025, with 0 properties purchased and an average price of $937,500 based on an isolated transaction, thereby preventing a direct comparison to homeowner prices for the quarter due to lack of available homeowner data.

The most recent observable price gap from Q3 2025 shows landlords acquiring properties at a significant $339,245 discount (39.7% less) than traditional homeowners, with landlords paying $515,755 versus homeowners' $855,000.

Over the full year 2025, the average landlord acquisition price was $534,115, a 13.5% decrease from the $616,772 average in 2024, indicating a cooling in average prices year-over-year.

Acquisition prices in 2025 reflect a substantial 9.6% increase from the $487,321 average seen during the 2020-2023 pandemic boom period, demonstrating continued appreciation despite recent quarterly fluctuations.

The absence of homeowner price data for Q4, Q2, and Q1 2025 limits a comprehensive quarter-over-quarter analysis of the price gap, suggesting data collection challenges in Rich County.

Landlords comprised 100.0% of the extremely limited SFR purchase activity in Rich County during Q4 2025, acquiring the sole property transacted out of a total of 1 SFR purchase.

The entire landlord acquisition in Q4 2025 (1 property) was driven by mom-and-pop investors (Tier 01-04), indicating their complete dominance in current purchasing activity, with no recorded institutional participation.

A single new landlord, categorized as a 'Single-property' (Tier 01) entity, entered the Rich County market in Q4 2025, purchasing 1 property and signaling continued individual investor interest despite low overall market volume.

The complete absence of purchases by larger investor tiers (Tier 02 through Tier 09) underscores a significant slowdown in buying activity beyond the smallest individual investors for the quarter.

With only 1 property purchased by 1 entity in Q4 2025, the average properties per entity for this period stands at 1.0, highlighting the highly individualized nature of recent market entry.

Mom-and-pop landlords (Tier 01-04) collectively own an overwhelming 99.9% of all investor-owned SFR properties in Rich County, holding 1,821 out of 1,823 properties in these tiers, demonstrating their near-complete market dominance.

The backbone of this market is the single-property landlord (Tier 01), who accounts for 1,627 properties, representing an astounding 89.2% of the entire investor-owned SFR portfolio, far surpassing any other tier.

Institutional investors (Tier 09, 1000+ properties) have no recorded presence in Rich County, controlling 0.0% of investor-owned SFR properties, which stands in stark contrast to national narratives often focusing on large corporate buyers.

Mid-size landlords (Tiers 05-08) hold a minimal share, with Tier 11-20 and Tier 21-50 each owning only 1 property, further solidifying the small-scale nature of the investor market in this county.

The current tier distribution clearly illustrates Rich County as a market fundamentally built and sustained by individual and very small-scale property owners, rather than larger corporate entities.

Individual investors overwhelmingly dominate the smaller portfolio tiers in Rich County, owning 1,188 properties (72.7%) in the single-property tier, 116 properties (80.6%) in the two-property tier, and 37 properties (92.5%) in the three-to-five property tier.

A significant crossover point occurs in the 'Small landlord (6-10 properties)' tier, where company ownership surpasses individual ownership, with companies holding 7 properties (70.0%) compared to individuals' 3 properties (30.0%).

Despite this crossover, companies do not extend their dominance into larger tiers, as there are no recorded institutional (1000+ property) holdings for either individual or company owner types in Rich County.

The data clearly illustrates that company investment strategy in Rich County focuses on the upper end of the 'mid-size' landlord segment, rather than mass-scale institutional accumulation, as seen in the 6-10 property tier.

The absence of pricing data broken down by individual versus company within each tier prevents an analysis of whether specific owner types pay more or less for properties at different investment scales in Rich County.

Investor-owned SFR properties in Rich County are heavily concentrated, with the 84028 zip code alone holding 1,234 properties, which represents the largest volume of landlord holdings in any sub-geography within the county.

While 84028 leads in property count, other zip codes demonstrate even higher investor penetration rates; notably, 84086 shows an astounding 93.6% of its SFR properties are investor-owned, even though it has a smaller total of 117 properties.

The top four zip codes—84028, 84038, 84064, and 84086—collectively account for virtually all (1,788) investor-owned properties in Rich County, indicating extreme geographic concentration within the county.

The high investor ownership rates across these zip codes, ranging from 79.4% to 93.6%, suggest that landlord activity is a fundamental characteristic of the SFR market throughout Rich County, rather than an isolated phenomenon.

Average acquisition prices by sub-geography are not provided, limiting analysis of how prices vary across these highly concentrated investor markets within Rich County.

Landlords in Rich County demonstrated a persistent and strong net buying position throughout 2025, acquiring 60 properties while selling only 4, resulting in an impressive 15.00x buy-to-sell ratio.

This aggressive accumulation trend is consistent, with Q3 2025 showing 28 buys versus 1 sell (a 28.00x ratio) and Q2 2025 reporting 17 buys versus 3 sells (a 5.67x ratio), confirming landlords' strategy of portfolio expansion.

For the full year 2024, landlords maintained a similar net buyer status, with 61 purchases against 5 sales, indicating that this pattern of accumulation has been stable over the past two years.

Notably, institutional investors (Tier 1000+) recorded zero buy or sell transactions across all timeframes, underscoring their complete absence from the Rich County market and reinforcing the dominance of smaller investors.

The lack of data regarding inter-landlord transactions and average buy/sell prices prevents a deeper analysis of market liquidity and potential profit margins from property flipping or divestment strategies.

Landlords were involved in 50.0% of Rich County's extremely limited Q4 2025 transaction volume, accounting for 1 out of the 2 total SFR transactions observed.

The sole landlord transaction in Q4 was executed by a single-property landlord (Tier 01), who paid a substantial average purchase price of $937,500, indicating high entry costs for new, small-scale investors.

No institutional investors (Tier 09) engaged in any transactions in Q4 2025, further emphasizing the mom-and-pop dominance and the complete absence of large-scale corporate activity in the county's current market.

The single Tier 01 purchase was not sourced from another landlord (0.0% bought from landlords), suggesting that the limited Q4 activity involved transactions with traditional homeowners or non-investor sellers.

With a total of only 2 transactions and 1 landlord transaction in Q4, Rich County's real estate market experienced significantly subdued activity from all buyer types.