Wilson (KS) Investor Pulse Report (2025-Q4)

Investor ownership is deeply embedded in Wilson County's housing market, with landlords controlling 873 single-family residential properties, which constitutes a significant 30.9% of the total 2,822 SFRs.

The market is characterized by individual, small-scale ownership, as 713 properties (81.7%) are held by individual investors, compared to just 164 (18.8%) owned by companies. This pattern is even more pronounced when looking at landlord entities, where 772 of 843 (91.6%) are individuals.

A defining feature of this market is the prevalence of cash ownership. A staggering 88.1% of the investor portfolio (769 properties) is owned outright without financing, signaling a low-leverage, high-equity investment environment.

The portfolio is heavily focused on rentals, with 842 properties designated as rented, representing 96.4% of all investor-owned homes. This underscores the primary strategy of landlords in the area is generating rental income.

The stark difference between the 772 individual landlords owning 713 properties and 71 company landlords owning 164 properties reveals different portfolio scales. On average, companies hold 2.3 properties each, while individuals hold just under one property on average, reinforcing the "mom-and-pop" nature of the market.

Analysis of acquisition pricing is not possible for Wilson County due to a complete lack of sales transactions in the available data for Q4 2025.

There were no recorded purchases by landlords, traditional homeowners, or any other buyer type during the most recent quarter, making a price comparison unattainable.

Historical data is also sparse, with zero properties recorded as purchased by landlords between 2020 and 2023, preventing any analysis of price appreciation or long-term trends.

The absence of sales data itself is a critical insight, pointing to an extremely illiquid or stable market where properties rarely change hands.

Without transactional data, it is impossible to determine if landlords typically purchase at a discount compared to homeowners, a common trend in more active markets.

Investor purchasing activity in Wilson County came to a complete halt in Q4 2025, with landlords acquiring zero of the zero total SFR properties sold during the period.

This lack of activity means landlords had a 0.0% market share of purchases for the quarter, a clear indicator of a market standstill.

No new landlords entered the market, as the single-property (Tier 01) cohort recorded zero new entities and zero property acquisitions.

Activity was non-existent across all investor sizes, from mom-and-pop landlords (Tiers 01-04) to institutional investors (Tier 09), all of whom made no purchases.

The data reflects a period of extreme market illiquidity, where neither investors nor other buyer types were transacting in the single-family residential space.

The investor landscape in Wilson County is overwhelmingly controlled by small-scale "mom-and-pop" landlords. Those owning 1-10 properties (Tiers 01-04) collectively hold 90.2% of all investor-owned homes.

First-time or single-property landlords (Tier 01) form the bedrock of the market, owning 515 properties, which accounts for a majority 56.3% share of the entire investor portfolio.

The presence of large-scale investors is virtually non-existent. Institutional investors (Tier 09, 1000+ properties) and Large investors (101-1000 tier) each own only a single property, representing a combined market share of just 0.2%.

Mid-size landlords (11-100 properties) also hold a small fraction of the market, with the 11-20 and 21-50 property tiers combined controlling only 88 properties, or 9.6% of the portfolio.

This tier distribution paints a clear picture of a decentralized market, heavily reliant on local, small-portfolio investors rather than large, consolidated corporate entities.

Individual investors are the primary owners across every significant portfolio tier in Wilson County, with no crossover point where companies become the majority owners.

Among single-property landlords, the largest cohort, individuals own 471 properties (90.8%) compared to just 48 (9.2%) for companies, establishing a foundation of individual ownership.

This individual dominance persists as portfolio sizes increase. In the 6-10 property tier, individuals hold 78 properties (78.8%), and even in the 11-20 property tier, they maintain a 63.9% majority with 23 properties.

The data strongly indicates that the growth model in this county is based on individuals scaling their portfolios rather than corporate entities consolidating ownership.

Due to the lack of recent transaction data, it's impossible to compare acquisition prices or growth patterns between individual and company investors.

Investor activity is geographically concentrated and represents a significant portion of the housing stock in key Wilson County zip codes. The top 5 areas all have investor ownership rates above 21%.

The highest rate of investor saturation is in zip code 67335, where landlords own 50.0% of the SFR properties. Following closely in terms of rate is 66710, with a 40.7% investor ownership rate.

The areas with the largest absolute number of investor-owned homes are 66736 (368 properties) and 66757 (333 properties). Both of these zip codes share an identical and high investor ownership rate of 30.6%.

This data reveals a pattern where high investor counts and high ownership percentages often coincide, indicating that investors are targeting and significantly impacting the same core communities within the county.

The widespread high penetration rates across multiple zip codes suggest that investor ownership is a defining characteristic of the entire county's real estate market, not just an isolated phenomenon.

A lack of available historical transaction data for Wilson County prevents any analysis of long-term landlord buying and selling patterns.

It is not possible to determine if landlords have historically been net buyers or net sellers, as buy/sell counts for any timeframe are absent from the data.

Insights into market liquidity, such as the percentage of transactions occurring between landlords, cannot be generated due to the data gap.

Similarly, institutional investor (1000+ tier) transaction behavior remains unknown, making it impossible to compare their strategy to the broader market.

The lack of historical data, combined with zero Q4 activity, suggests Wilson County is a market characterized by long-term holds rather than frequent trading.

The transaction market in Wilson County was entirely dormant in Q4 2025, with zero total transactions recorded for single-family residential properties.

As a result, landlords' share of market transactions was 0.0%, reflecting the complete absence of buying and selling activity from any investor group.

No transaction volumes were observed across any of the nine investor tiers, indicating that both small-scale mom-and-pop landlords and large institutional investors were inactive.

Analysis of purchasing strategies, such as average prices paid by tier or the rate of buying from other landlords, is impossible due to the zero-transaction environment.

This Q4 data reinforces the picture of a deeply illiquid market where assets are not currently being traded among investors or any other parties.