Who Owns Virginia’s Investment Properties? The Numbers Tell a More Local Story

When housing affordability comes up, investors are often part of the conversation. But “investor” can mean very different things—from an individual who owns one rental home to a company with a portfolio of hundreds of properties.

A recent analysis from Virginia REALTORS® helps put that distinction into perspective. Investor-owned properties account for 11.3% of Virginia’s residential properties, but most belong to individuals and smaller investors—not large institutional owners. Understanding that difference provides a clearer picture of who owns housing across the Commonwealth.

Investor Ownership Has Increased Since 2023

Virginia REALTORS® analyzed property-level data and defined investors as individuals or entities that purchase a home without residing in it.

Under that definition, investor-owned properties represent 11.3% of Virginia’s residential properties, up from 10.2% in the organization’s 2023 study. That is an increase of 1.1 percentage points.

There is an important distinction here: these figures measure ownership, not the percentage of recent home purchases made by investors. They describe the share of residential properties held by investors, rather than how frequently investors are competing for homes currently on the market.

Large Institutional Investors Own a Much Smaller Share

The study defines institutional investors as entities that own more than 100 properties. These owners account for 1.2% of all residential properties in Virginia—a much smaller share than the overall investor-owned total.

In other words, it would be misleading to treat all investor-owned housing as corporate-owned housing. The statewide findings show that individuals and smaller investors make up most of Virginia’s investor ownership.

That does not mean institutional ownership is irrelevant. It means the conversation benefits from separating large investment portfolios from smaller property owners rather than grouping everyone into one category.

Investor Activity Looks Different Across Virginia

The statewide average tells only part of the story. Virginia REALTORS® found substantial differences among metropolitan areas, with investor ownership concentrated in particular markets rather than spread evenly across the state.

The metro areas with the highest overall investor ownership shares were:

• Charlottesville: 18.4%

• Harrisonburg: 18.4%

• Blacksburg: 15.6%

In these regions, investor-owned properties are concentrated in college towns, and much of the activity comes from smaller investors owning fewer than 10 properties. Hampton Roads had the lowest overall investor ownership share among the Virginia metros analyzed, at 9.8%.

The rankings change when looking specifically at institutional ownership. Northern Virginia had the highest share at 2.3%, followed by Winchester at 1.5% and Charlottesville at 1.3%. Hampton Roads again had the lowest share, at 0.3%. These percentages represent shares of each region’s residential properties—not shares of its investor-owned properties.

The distinction matters: a market with a relatively high level of investor ownership does not necessarily have a high concentration of large institutional owners.

What This Means for the Housing Supply Conversation

The analysis suggests that Virginia’s investor landscape is primarily smaller-scale and regional. It also argues that efforts to expand housing supply may have more influence on the Commonwealth’s housing shortage than restrictions aimed only at large institutional investors.

The ownership figures provide useful context, but they should not be read as a direct measurement of investors’ effects on home prices, rents, or competition for individual listings. A statewide ownership share answers “Who owns the properties?” It does not, by itself, answer “What caused prices to rise?”

For Richmond-area readers, the same distinction is worth keeping in mind. The article’s written findings do not provide a Richmond-specific ownership percentage, so the statewide figure should not be presented as Richmond’s local rate.

A More Useful Way to Read the Market

Virginia’s housing market is not one uniform market, and its investors are not one uniform group.

This research offers a more grounded starting point for discussions about affordability and availability: distinguish small property owners from institutional investors, separate existing ownership from current purchasing activity, and recognize that regional patterns can differ substantially from statewide averages.

Those distinctions help move the conversation beyond broad headlines and toward a clearer understanding of Virginia’s housing landscape.

Source

Virginia REALTORS®, “An Analysis of Investor Activity Across Virginia,” by Sejal Naik, Deputy Chief Economist, published October 5, 2026.