Where are investors actually buying?

HottestZip is a free tool that publishes recorded investor purchases of single-family homes for 33,642 US residential ZIP codes, and ranks the 6,912 ZIPs with enough sales to rank honestly. Every number is a count aggregated from public property records — recorded deeds, foreclosure filings, tax rolls — plus listing statuses, over the 12 months ending June 3, 2026. There is no score and no model: the counts are shown directly.

From public property records — recorded deeds, mortgages, foreclosure filings, tax rolls — plus listing and vacancy statuses, aggregated nationally across 33,642 residential ZIP codes and 3,125 counties. HottestZip publishes the aggregate counts, not individual records.

A purchase of a single-family home where the buyer is a corporate entity (an LLC or corporation). This is a deliberately conservative definition: investors who buy in their personal name are not counted, so the true investor number in most ZIPs is higher than what we show. We prefer an undercount we can defend to an estimate we can't.

This edition covers the 12 months ending June 3, 2026, and was compiled on July 5, 2026. It is a snapshot, not a live feed — every page is date-stamped, and if we publish a new edition the dates will change with it.

By investor purchases per 100 single-family homes over the 12-month window. To be ranked, a ZIP needs at least 500 single-family homes, at least 30 recorded sales, and at least 15 investor purchases, and must not be a second-home market (over 65% absentee-owned). 6,912 ZIPs qualify. Every ZIP — ranked or not — is still searchable with its counts shown.

Usually one of three honest reasons: too few recorded sales to be a reliable sample, too few single-family homes, or a second-home/vacation pattern where absentee ownership doesn't mean rental investors. The ZIP's page says which reason applies and still shows every count we have.

The rankings, every ZIP's core numbers (investor purchases, share of sales, turnover), and the methodology are free with no email. An email address unlocks the full ZIP report: year-over-year trend, the distress pipeline (pre-foreclosure, tax-delinquent, vacant counts), buyer mix (flips, cash), owner pools, and a ZIP-vs-county comparison.

No. You get the full report, plus occasional emails about investor buying data and what GoForClose offers. Every email has a one-click unsubscribe. We ask for no phone number and no card.

The official Census metro and micro area definitions (March 2020 delineations) — so “Omaha metro” correctly includes Council Bluffs across the Iowa line. Markets are ranked by the same per-100-homes yardstick as ZIPs, with year-over-year change shown. To be ranked, a market needs 10,000+ single-family homes, 300+ recorded sales, and 50+ investor purchases, and can't be a vacation market (majority of its homes in second-home-flagged ZIPs). 591 of 927 markets qualify.

Investor purchases divided by the ZIP's single-family housing stock, times 100. It answers: out of every 100 houses in this ZIP, how many did an investor buy in the last 12 months? It lets a 4,000-home ZIP be compared fairly with a 20,000-home ZIP.

In ZIPs where over 65% of homes are absentee-owned, corporate buying usually reflects vacation rentals and seasonal money, not the buy-and-hold or flip investing most operators mean by “hot.” Those ZIPs are excluded from rankings — but flagged and fully viewable, with the reason stated on the page.

The rankings and core numbers are free with no email. The deeper ZIP and market reports cost an email address. HottestZip is powered by GoForClose, a done-for-you direct mail service for real estate investors — publishing the counts is how we show our work. If you never buy anything from us, the tool still works exactly the same.

It covers 33,642 residential ZIP codes across all 50 states and Washington DC — single-family homes only. PO-box ZIPs, non-residential ZIPs, and US territories are not included. 3,388 very small ZIPs (fewer than 20 single-family homes) are shown but not measured, because samples that small produce fake-precise numbers.