Birmingham, Ala., had the highest net share of investor homebuyers of any major U.S. metro in 2025, according to a Realtor.com economic research team report, even as high mortgage rates have cooled investor activity nationally.
About 21% of home sales in Birmingham went to investors last year, while investors sold 14.4% of the homes that changed hands in the metro — a net share of investor purchases of 6.6%, the highest of the 50 largest U.S. metros. “In Birmingham, the money is in the rent check, not the resale,” said Cameron Walker, a real estate expert at Clever Real Estate. “That’s the whole story of why investors hold.”
Affordable prices, dependable rents drive the “Magic City”
Birmingham’s median listing price is $160,000, against a median monthly rent of $1,300. An investor putting 20% down on a median-priced home would carry a roughly $1,067 monthly mortgage payment, leaving room to profit while still charging a competitive rent, according to the report. The metro also benefits from some of the lowest property taxes in the country and a steady tenant pipeline tied to the University of Alabama at Birmingham and its associated hospital system.
“Seven of the metros — Memphis, Birmingham, Kansas City, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Columbus and Cleveland — are classic cash-flow markets where affordable entry prices, climbing rents, landlord-friendly tax environments and durable renter demand attract investors,” said Hannah Jones, senior economist at Realtor.com. Miami and New York also cracked the top 10 for different reasons, she said: “Miami and New York are outliers driven by big investors buying in because prices are expected to keep rising and it’s easy to sell later, rather than to earn steady rental income.”
The full top 10
Ranked by net share of investor home purchases in 2025: Birmingham (6.6%); Memphis, Tenn. (6.2%); Kansas City, Mo. (5.7%); St. Louis (4.6%); Pittsburgh (4.4%); Columbus, Ohio (4.3%); Miami (4.2%); New York (3.4%); Cleveland (3.4%); and Salt Lake City (3.1%). Birmingham led with 5,339 total investor purchases at a median investor purchase price of $206,000, while larger markets like Kansas City and St. Louis saw higher raw investor purchase counts — 9,810 and 11,431, respectively — despite lower net investor shares.
Walker said Birmingham’s appeal is different from faster-growing Sun Belt markets built for flipping. “In overheated markets, investors are motivated to make purchases because they believe that this way they are going to receive a higher appreciation,” he said, whereas in Birmingham “investors try to obtain decent yields right now, and the appreciation in their investment opportunities is a bonus.” With more than 2,100 active listings in the metro, investors also have ample inventory to choose from, and Walker said buyers there should expect slow, steady price appreciation rather than a rapid runup.
What it means
The investor-share rankings and pricing figures come from Realtor.com’s own research team and are the company’s analysis of its listing and transaction data, not an independently audited market census. Walker’s read on investor psychology — cash flow first, appreciation second — is one broker’s attributed interpretation, not a universal rule. The findings nonetheless fit a broader pattern already visible in national data: as single-family construction cools nationally, investors appear to be gravitating toward already-affordable Midwest and Rust Belt metros where rents cover mortgage payments comfortably, rather than higher-priced coastal markets where appreciation bets carry more risk.
