Local Investors Outpace Builders in Delivering Affordable Homes, New Western's Flip Side Report Reveals

Small, independent investors are reshaping housing supply faster — and more affordably — than builders in most U.S. markets.

DALLAS, Aug. 19, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- New Western, the nation's leading real estate investment marketplace and largest home buyer, today released its Flip Side Report: Mid-Year 2025 Residential Real Estate Investing Trends, showing that in most U.S. markets, local investors are now delivering more homes to buyers than builders — and doing so faster, at lower prices, and with greater community impact. These investors are reviving vacant or distressed, unlivable properties into move-in-ready homes, turning overlooked housing stock into much-needed inventory.

The Flip Side Report uncovers a major but underreported force in America's housing market: small, independent investors revitalizing neglected properties into affordable, move-in-ready homes — helping to close the nation's housing affordability gap.

Key Findings from the Report:

• In analyzed markets, local investors brought 30,852 revitalized homes to market in 2025, surpassing 18,973 new builds sold in the same period.
  
  
• Revitalized homes are 35% to 80% more affordable than new construction and often priced below existing home medians. Revitalized homes are 35% to 80% more affordable than new construction, and 17% more affordable than the market median existing home sales.
  
  
• Institutional investors account for just 1.93% of all home purchases; 93.4% of investment activity comes from small, local operators.
  
  
• Over 70% of flips begin off-market, bypassing the MLS, but after being revived and listed, they generate nearly $1 billion in Q1 realtor commissions — from inventory that wouldn't exist without investors bringing it back to life.
  
  
• With 15 million vacant homes nationwide, there's a massive untapped pipeline of properties ready for transformation.

Quote from Kurt Carlton, Co-Founder and President of New Western:
"Everything you thought you knew about real estate is wrong. The data sets most people rely on don't capture the full picture — entire slices of activity are missing. One of those missing pieces drove $900 million in real estate agent commissions in Q1 alone, in just 40 markets. Without those revitalized homes, that business wouldn't have existed for agents, and those properties wouldn't have been there for families to buy," said Kurt Carlton, Co-Founder and President of New Western. "Our housing market is in a fragile state. If we continue down the path of deepening unaffordability — especially in the critical band of starter homes — we risk breaking the entire cycle of homeownership. It's critical we understand the real forces at work so we can double down on the solutions that are truly driving change."

About New Western
New Western is the nation's largest home buyer and a real estate investment marketplace that creates opportunity. We make investing more accessible for over 250,000 local investors through the largest private source of value-add properties in the nation. We buy and sell a home every 13 minutes in most major cities. New Western creates an advantage for all — a fresh start for sellers, exclusive properties for investors, and new, affordable inventory for the housing market. New Western was honored with a Glassdoor Employees' Choice Award for Best Places to Work in the U.S. small and medium company category in 2023, 2024, and 2025. Learn more at www.newwestern.com and explore careers at www.newwestern.com/careers.

Media Contact
Andrea Merrill, VP of Marketing, New Western, [email protected] 

SOURCE New Western