Moody (SD) Investor Pulse Report (2026-Q1)

In Moody County, investors hold 230 single-family residential properties, accounting for 13.9% of the total 1,657 SFRs in the market.

Individual investors are the definitive force, owning 195 properties (84.8%), while company-owned properties number just 37 (16.1%). This trend is also reflected in the entity count, where there are 290 individual landlords compared to 39 company landlords.

The financing profile of these holdings reveals a strong preference for cash acquisitions. An overwhelming 227 of the 230 properties are designated as cash-owned, with only 3 properties carrying financing, signaling low leverage among local investors.

The portfolio is heavily focused on rental income, with 228 of the 230 properties classified as rented. This demonstrates a clear buy-and-hold strategy geared towards generating rental yield rather than speculative flipping.

The total number of landlords (329) exceeds the number of investor-owned properties (230), indicating that co-ownership is a common practice in this market.

There was no recorded acquisition activity for either landlords or traditional homeowners in Moody County during the specified timeframes.

Due to the absence of transaction data, a comparative analysis of acquisition prices cannot be performed.

It is not possible to determine if a price gap exists between what investors and homeowners pay in this market.

Similarly, analysis of price appreciation or depreciation from previous periods like 2024 or the 2020-2023 timeframe is unfeasible given the lack of sales.

The data indicates a market with extremely low liquidity and transaction volume during the reporting period.

The investor market in Moody County came to a complete standstill in Q4 2025, with landlords purchasing zero single-family properties.

This lack of activity resulted in landlords having a 0.0% share of all SFR purchases for the quarter.

Analysis by tier shows no activity across the board. Mom-and-pop landlords (Tiers 01-04) made no purchases, accounting for 0.0% of the non-existent investor activity.

Likewise, institutional investors (Tier 09) were completely inactive, with zero properties acquired.

The absence of any purchases in the single-property tier signifies that no new investors entered the Moody County rental market during Q4 2025.

The investor landscape in Moody County is overwhelmingly dominated by small-scale operators. Mom-and-pop landlords, who own between 1 and 10 properties, control 99.6% of all investor-held SFRs.

Single-property landlords (Tier 01) represent the largest segment by a wide margin, holding 219 of the 230 investor properties. This 94.8% share underscores the market's reliance on first-time or small-scale investors.

Mid-size landlords are almost non-existent, and there is no presence of institutional investors (Tier 09) in this market, highlighting a complete absence of large-scale corporate ownership.

The remaining small portion of the market is held by investors with 2 properties (3.0%) and 3-5 properties (1.7%).

Due to a lack of recent transaction data, it is not possible to analyze how acquisition prices may vary between these different tiers.

Individual investors maintain majority ownership across every active portfolio tier in Moody County, reinforcing their market dominance.

In the largest segment, single-property landlords, individuals own 188 properties (85.1%) compared to just 33 properties (14.9%) owned by companies.

Even as portfolio sizes increase slightly, individuals lead. In the two-property tier, individuals own 5 properties (71.4%), and in the 3-5 property tier, they own 3 properties (75.0%).

There is no crossover point where companies become the majority owners. Their highest market share within a tier is only 28.6% (2 of 7 properties in the two-property tier), indicating a market that has not attracted significant corporate investment.

The lack of transaction data prevents any comparison of acquisition prices between individual and company landlords within these tiers.

Geographic analysis reveals that investor holdings in Moody County are concentrated in a few key zip codes. The largest number of investor-owned properties are in 57028 (69 properties) and 57017 (61 properties).

The highest rates of investor ownership are found in different, smaller markets. Zip code 57065 leads with a 46.7% investor ownership rate, followed by 57002 at 33.3% and 57071 at 16.7%.

This highlights a key distinction: the areas with the highest counts of investor properties are not necessarily the areas with the highest market penetration. For example, 57028 holds the most properties but has a relatively modest 8.9% ownership rate.

Conversely, areas like 57065 show that in certain hyper-local markets, nearly half of the housing stock is investor-owned.

Data for zip codes 56144 and 57057 was unavailable for a complete analysis.

A lack of available historical transaction data for Moody County prevents any analysis of long-term investor behavior.

It is impossible to calculate a buy/sell ratio to determine whether landlords have historically been net buyers or net sellers in this market.

Information on inter-landlord transactions is also unavailable, so the percentage of properties traded between investors cannot be assessed.

Without buy and sell prices over time, no insight can be drawn regarding implied profit margins or pricing trends.

This data gap applies to all landlord tiers, including institutional investors, for whom no historical transaction data was recorded.

The final quarter of 2025 was entirely static for the investor market in Moody County, with zero transactions recorded involving landlords.

This lack of activity gave landlords a 0.0% share of all SFR transactions during the period.

Transaction volume was zero across all investor tiers, from single-property owners to the largest portfolios.

Consequently, there is no data to compare average purchase prices between different investor sizes for Q4 2025.

With no purchases, the level of inter-landlord trading (properties bought from other landlords) was also zero, indicating a complete freeze in market liquidity among investors.