Dodge (WI) Investor Pulse Report (2025-Q4)

Investors hold a 10.2% share of the single-family residential market in Dodge County, with a total portfolio of 2,597 properties.

Individual investors form the backbone of the rental market, owning 1,851 properties, which constitutes a commanding 71.3% of all investor-owned SFRs. In contrast, company investors own the remaining 772 properties (29.7%).

The ownership structure is heavily skewed towards individuals, with 2,453 individual landlords compared to just 521 company landlords, a ratio of nearly 5-to-1.

Cash is the preferred ownership method, with 1,682 properties owned outright, compared to 915 properties that carry financing. This suggests a well-capitalized investor base less sensitive to interest rate fluctuations.

The portfolio is clearly rental-focused, with 2,511 of the 2,597 properties classified as non-owner-occupied, confirming the primary business model of these landlords.

Investors demonstrate a significant pricing advantage, acquiring properties in Q4 2025 for an average of $208,700, a steep 36.8% discount compared to the $330,161 paid by traditional homeowners.

This equates to a substantial cash advantage of $121,461 per property, highlighting a distinct purchasing strategy or access to off-market deals not available to the general public.

The landlord discount has been volatile throughout 2025, ranging from a low of 12.5% ($36,866) in Q1 to a high of 50.6% ($160,359) in Q2, suggesting fluctuating market conditions or opportunistic buying.

Comparing prices over time reveals significant market shifts. The average landlord acquisition price in 2025 ($220,273) is markedly lower than the 2024 average ($356,884), indicating a potential cooling in the segment of the market where investors are active.

Investor purchasing accounted for 29 of the 271 total SFR sales in Q4 2025, representing a 10.7% market share of all acquisitions.

The market's growth is driven by small-scale investors, with mom-and-pop landlords (Tiers 01-04) responsible for 23 of the 29 investor purchases (79.3%).

New entrants are a key feature of the market, as 23 new entities purchased their first investment property in Q4, buying 17 homes and making up 58.6% of all landlord acquisitions.

Mid-size investors also showed activity, with those in the 11-50 property tier acquiring 5 properties, or 17.2% of the investor total.

Notably absent from Q4 activity were institutional investors (1000+ properties), who made no purchases, reinforcing the local, small-scale nature of the Dodge County rental market.

The investor market in Dodge County is defined by the dominance of small landlords. Those owning 1-10 properties (Tiers 01-04) collectively hold 94.5% of all investor-owned SFRs.

Single-property landlords are the largest single group, with 1,863 properties making up 69.4% of the entire investor portfolio. This highlights the highly fragmented and localized nature of rental ownership.

In stark contrast, institutional investors with 1,000 or more properties have a minimal presence, owning just 9 properties, which amounts to only 0.3% of the market.

The mid-size landlord segment (11-100 properties) holds a combined 4.9% share, indicating that scaling beyond 10 properties is relatively uncommon in this market.

This distribution definitively shows that the narrative of large corporations controlling the housing market does not apply in Dodge County, where the rental stock is overwhelmingly managed by local, small-scale operators.

A clear ownership pattern emerges as portfolios scale: individuals dominate the entry-level, but companies take over as operations grow. Individuals own 81.1% of single-property portfolios and 68.2% of two-property portfolios.

The crossover point occurs in the small landlord tier of 3-5 properties, where companies become the majority owners for the first time, holding a 52.9% share of properties.

Company dominance solidifies in larger tiers. In the 11-20 property bracket, companies own 66.3% of the homes, and in the 21-50 bracket, their control is nearly absolute at 97.1%.

This trend suggests that as investors expand beyond a few properties, they increasingly turn to corporate structures like LLCs for liability protection and operational efficiency.

Even with this shift at higher tiers, the sheer volume of small individual landlords means they own the majority of properties overall (71.3%), reinforcing their central role in the market.

Investor ownership is highly concentrated geographically within Dodge County. The zip code 53916 stands out as the area with the highest volume of investor activity, containing 783 investor-owned SFRs.

Other key areas for investor ownership by count include 53034 with 143 properties and 53050 with 135 properties.

However, the highest market penetration is found elsewhere. The 53010 zip code has the highest investor ownership rate at 37.5%, meaning more than one in every three SFRs is investor-owned.

The 53933 zip code also shows a high density of investor ownership, with a rate of 25.4%.

This distinction between high-volume and high-penetration areas reveals different market dynamics, pointing to both large rental markets and smaller communities with a high proportion of rental housing.

The transaction data reveals a strong and sustained trend of portfolio accumulation among Dodge County landlords. In Q4 2025, they were decisive net buyers, with 36 acquisitions and only 10 sales.

This equates to a buy-to-sell ratio of 3.6, indicating a clear strategy of growth and a bullish outlook on the local rental market.

This behavior is not a recent phenomenon. Across all of 2025, landlords purchased 162 properties while selling only 46, maintaining a high net acquisition volume.

The trend was even more pronounced in 2024, when investors bought 204 properties and sold just 44, for an even stronger buy-to-sell ratio of 4.6 to 1.

This consistent pattern of net buying across multiple years signals long-term confidence and continued capital deployment into the Dodge County single-family rental market.

In Q4 2025, landlords participated in 36 of the 407 total SFR transactions in Dodge County, capturing an 8.8% share of market activity.

A surprising pricing pattern emerged among buyers. First-time investors in the single-property tier paid the highest average price at $237,078 per home.

In contrast, larger, more experienced landlords paid substantially less. Investors in the 11-20 property tier paid an average of just $137,750, and those in the 3-5 property tier paid $127,333, suggesting they target different types of properties or have superior deal-sourcing capabilities.

The market for inter-landlord transactions is underdeveloped. Among the 23 purchases made by single-property landlords, only one (4.3%) was acquired from an existing landlord, indicating that most acquisitions come from the traditional homeowner market.

Institutional investors (1,000+ properties) were completely inactive, recording zero transactions in the quarter, further cementing the market's reliance on smaller players.