Real Estate Investor Sentiment Consistent in Q4, RCN Capital/CJ Patrick Survey Finds
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RCN Capital, South Windsor, Conn., and CJ Patrick Co., Trabuco Canyon, Calif., released their latest Investor Sentiment Index, showing a score of 101. That’s flat from Q3 and up four points year-over-year.
The score indicates a generally positive outlook from investors, and is the highest Q4 reading in the index’s three-year history. The survey’s low point was Q1 2025, when it sat at 88.
Approximately four in 10 investors say their outlook is the same as last year, four in 10 say it’s better and only about two in 10 think it’s worse.
Nearly 30% believe the environment for residential real estate investing is the same as a year ago, about 45% believe it’s either much better or better and the remaining respondents believe it’s worse or much worse.
“Investor sentiment seems to have stabilized at a reasonably positive level, and investors seem cautiously optimistic about 2026,” said RCN Capital CEO Jeffrey Tesch. “This could be due to housing market conditions that have improved somewhat–both new and existing home sales gained momentum toward the end of 2025, price appreciation slowed down, and the inventory of homes available for sale increased. All of these trends are favorable for both fix-and-flip and rental property investors.”
The three biggest challenges cited by investors are the high cost of financing (53.2%), rising home prices (36.6%) and competition from institutional investors (29.3%). Looking forward six months, respondents predicted the high cost of financing will still be a challenge (50.6%) but competition from institutional investors (36%) will overtake rising home prices (32.8%).
In terms of home price expectations over the next six months, 30.3% believe they’ll increase by less than 5%, 27.1% think they’ll increase by more than 5% and 26.4% think they’ll stay about the same. Lesser responses included that they’ll decrease by less than 5% (11.5%) and decrease by more than 5% (4.8%).
Twenty-nine percent said that home prices and asking rents slowing or turning negative will likely affect their investing by year-end, and about 40% said they have already affected their investing.
Nearly three-quarters (73.6%) of respondents said rising insurance costs or the inability to insure properties are a factor in their decision to invest in real estate, and 52.9% said insurance issues have caused them to miss out on an opportunity to buy or sell.
The respondents represent a mix of investors in fix-and-flip, buy-and-hold for rental and wholesaling, and the majority (57%) have five properties or fewer.
And, 45.5% plan to invest in five or fewer properties over the next year. Thirty-four percent intend to invest in none, 16.6% plan to invest in six to 10 and 3.8% intend to invest in 11 or more. For the majority–53.8%–this is consistent with the past year.
