California house investors target most-affordable counties

You’re more likely to find California houses owned by investors in the state’s more affordable communities.

That’s what my trusty spreadsheet found after reviewing a BatchData report from the third quarter of 2025 that calculates investor ownership of houses and townhomes nationwide.

Investors in this study include everything from giant companies controlling thousands of houses to folks with a small collection of rentals to short-term rental operators to people with a second home. Condo ownership was not included.

BatchData figures were used to rank California’s 58 counties by the average prices investors paid for homes in 2020-25. The counties were then split into three groups, each equally weighted by the number of houses.

First, note the huge cost differences. The average investor’s purchase price in the cheapest counties was $455,000 – roughly one-third the $1.38 million spent in the costliest counties.

Next, examine California investment preferences in the state’s lower-cost locales compared to its costliest areas.

Investors owned 498,888 houses in the least-expensive counties as of 2025’s third quarter vs. 383,277 owned in the most-expensive counties. That’s 30% more.

This translates to California investors controlling 21% of all houses in the cheaper counties, compared with 13% in the priciest places.

The thriftiness continues inside acquisition strategies.

Investors bought 185,779 houses in 2020-25 in California’s low-cost counties vs. 133,023 purchases in the most-expensive counties. That’s – 40% more.

Still, note that these price-linked differences look a tad different when considering the dollars involved.

Investor purchases in 2020-25 totaled $84 billion in the least-expensive locations. Yet in the priciest counties, investors paid $183 billion for their acquisitions – more than double, in the same period.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com