Over 10 Million U.S. Homes Show High Likelihood of Selling, 91% Off-Market
A new analysis of the U.S. housing market reveals a significant pool of potential seller activity, with 10,043,939 properties identified as having a high propensity to sell in the near future. This figure represents 8.8% of the 113.7 million properties scored nationwide, according to BatchData's September 2026 BatchRank (Sale Propensity) Report. Critically for investors, the vast majority of these opportunities, a staggering 91.1%, are currently off-market, signaling a deep well of potential deals outside the competitive public listing environment.
The findings highlight a market segment defined by residential properties, which account for 100.0% of all homes flagged with a high sale propensity. This concentration underscores the specific nature of the current seller landscape, pointing toward everyday homeowners and small landlords as the primary source of upcoming inventory. Geographically, the opportunity is not evenly distributed. A handful of states, led by Texas, Illinois, and Florida, contain a substantial share of these high-propensity homes. However, the data also reveals surprising hotspots in states like New Jersey and significant under-performance in traditional powerhouses like New York, challenging common assumptions about where the most motivated sellers are located.
This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the properties most likely to transact soon, offering a roadmap for real estate investing professionals seeking to identify motivated sellers before they hit the open market. By leveraging predictive analytics like BatchRank, investors and agents can refine their acquisition strategies and focus on the most promising segments of the U.S. housing market.
Key Trends in Seller Propensity
The national landscape of potential home sales is characterized by three dominant trends: an overwhelming concentration in off-market properties, an exclusive focus on the residential sector, and a scale that represents a substantial portion of the overall housing stock. These factors combine to create a unique market environment where data-driven prospecting is essential for uncovering valuable opportunities. The sheer volume of over 10 million properties indicates a widespread, rather than niche, phenomenon of owner motivation that savvy investors can tap into.
The 9.1 Million Off-Market Prize
Perhaps the most significant finding for investors is the massive imbalance between on-market and off-market opportunities. Of the 10,043,939 properties with a high likelihood to sell, 9,148,799 properties, or 91.1% of the total, are not currently listed for sale. This contrasts sharply with the 895,140 properties, representing just 8.9%, that are actively on the market. This distribution points to a vast, hidden inventory of homes where owners may be considering a sale but have not yet engaged an agent or listed the property publicly.
For investors, this off-market segment is the primary arena for finding deals with less competition and more favorable terms. These properties often belong to motivated sellers who may be receptive to direct offers, allowing buyers to avoid the bidding wars and price escalation common with publicly listed homes. Identifying these owners requires sophisticated tools, from using a robust property search platform to employing skip tracing services to obtain contact information. The data suggests that strategies focused on direct outreach have a potential target pool more than ten times larger than the pool of high-propensity properties available on the MLS. This underscores a fundamental shift in where the most scalable opportunities can be found in today's market.
Residential Real Estate: The Sole Focus of Seller Signals
The analysis reveals that the signals for a high propensity to sell are exclusively concentrated within the residential property sector. Residential homes make up 100.0% of the 10 million properties identified by the BatchRank model. This includes single-family homes, condominiums, townhouses, and small multi-family units. The absence of commercial, industrial, or other property types in this high-propensity pool indicates that the current drivers of seller motivation are overwhelmingly tied to personal housing decisions and the circumstances of individual owners rather than broader commercial real estate trends.
This finding allows investors to sharpen their focus considerably. The opportunities lie with homeowners who may be facing life changes, financial pressures, or simply a desire to liquidate an asset. For institutional investors and proptech platforms, this means that scalable acquisition strategies must be finely tuned to the nuances of the residential market. Accessing detailed assessor data and other property-level information through a property data API becomes critical for understanding the characteristics of these specific homes and their owners. The 100.0% residential concentration confirms that the core of the motivated seller market resides with everyday property owners.
Regional Breakdown of High-Propensity Properties
While the national total of over 10 million high-propensity properties is impressive, the geographic distribution of these opportunities is highly concentrated. A state-by-state analysis shows that market potential varies dramatically across the country, with certain regions and metropolitan areas emerging as epicenters of likely seller activity. The data challenges the notion that opportunity is tied solely to population size, as several smaller states demonstrate an outsized share of high-propensity homes while some of the nation's largest markets appear to have less relative activity. This uneven landscape makes localized market knowledge and targeted data analysis more important than ever.
Texas leads the nation with 1,132,489 high-propensity properties, accounting for 11.3% of the U.S. total. Following closely is Illinois, which captures the #2 spot with 778,938 properties (7.8%), a surprisingly strong showing that highlights significant opportunity in the Midwest. The Sun Belt remains a key region, with Florida ranking #3 with 721,953 properties (7.2%) and Georgia at #6 with 492,480 (4.9%). However, the Northeast also displays remarkable strength, with New Jersey ranking #4 nationally with 706,886 properties (7.0%), surpassing the much larger state of California. California, despite its massive housing market, ranks #5 with 618,888 properties, or 6.2% of the national total.
The top ten is rounded out by Pennsylvania (#7, 437,868), Michigan (#8, 433,700), North Carolina (#9, 410,434), and Tennessee (#10, 401,070). Together, these ten states represent a significant majority of the nation's potential deals. Conversely, some of the nation's largest states show a relative lack of high-propensity properties. New York, for example, ranks just #12 with 312,129 properties, a smaller count than Maryland (#11, 345,718) and only slightly ahead of Oregon (#13, 287,609). This under-indexing suggests that the market dynamics driving owners to sell are less prevalent in New York compared to other major states.
At the county level, the concentration becomes even more pronounced. Cook County, Illinois, is the nation's top hotspot by a wide margin, with 628,780 high-propensity properties. This single county contains more potential seller leads than 48 entire states. Wayne County, Michigan, home to Detroit, ranks #2 with 341,035 properties, further cementing the Midwest's role as a hub of opportunity. Other dominant counties include Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (#3, 161,253), Shelby County, Tennessee (#4, 157,231), and DeKalb County, Georgia (#5, 156,141). These urban centers are magnets for investor attention due to the sheer volume of potential off-market deals.
The bottom of the rankings is populated by smaller, more rural states. North Dakota has the fewest high-propensity properties in the nation at 2,228, followed by Vermont (2,531), South Dakota (2,863), and Hawaii (3,537). In these markets, opportunities are far more scarce, requiring a much more targeted approach to acquisition. The disparity is stark at the county level as well, with several rural counties like Kiowa, Lane, and Cheyenne in Kansas, as well as Worth County in Missouri and Hinsdale County in Colorado, each registering just one high-propensity property. For investors, the data makes it clear: while opportunities exist nationwide, the most efficient path to building a pipeline of deals lies in the nation's most concentrated urban and state-level markets.