Introduction

Who’s actually buying houses right now — and why aren’t you targeting them?

Wall Street’s been quietly retreating. According to a June 2026 Realtor.com report, institutional investors are backing out of the housing market ahead of new federal caps — and that exit is leaving an enormous gap. Two-thirds of investor-held stock is now flowing to mom-and-pop buyers. That’s not a footnote. That’s a market shift most wholesalers and agents are completely sleeping on.

Mom-and-pop landlords — your neighbor who owns three rentals, the retired teacher with a duplex, the micro investor who picks up one single-family property every couple of years — they’re dominating right now. Not the hedge funds. Not the iBuyers.

Key Stat: Realtor.com’s 2026 investor report confirms mom-and-pop investors are filling the void left by institutional pullback, claiming the majority of investor activity in the current market.

Most people I talk to are still chasing the same tired buyer lists, optimizing for the big fish who aren’t even biting anymore. I get it — the instinct makes sense. But the opportunity has quietly moved.

Over the next seven sections, we’re breaking down the four mistakes that are costing wholesalers and agents real deals — and exactly how to fix them.

Key Takeaways

  • Institutional investors are pulling back, creating a big opportunity for mom-and-pop buyers.
  • Mom-and-pop investors now dominate the market, absorbing two-thirds of investor-held stock.
  • Wholesalers and agents need to adjust their strategies to target these small landlords effectively.
  • Building relationships with mom-and-pop investors requires a different approach than with institutional buyers.
  • Tools like BatchLeads and REsimpli can help identify and connect with these investors.

What is The Hidden Goldmine: 4 Mistakes Wholesalers & Agents Make Overlooking Mom-and-Pop Investors in 2026?

The term gets thrown around loosely, so let’s actually nail it down.

Mom-and-pop investors — sometimes called micro investors or small landlords — are individuals or couples who own anywhere from one to roughly ten rental properties. No hedge fund backing. No asset management team. Just regular people who bought a duplex in 2011, maybe added a single-family rental in 2018, and are quietly building wealth one door at a time. They’re not attending CCIM conferences or bidding on 50-unit portfolios. Most of them don’t even think of themselves as “investors.”

That’s exactly why they get ignored.

Key Stat: According to the Realtor.com Real Estate Investor Report 2026, two-thirds of investor-held housing stock is now going to mom-and-pop buyers — as Wall Street retreats ahead of new federal caps on institutional ownership.

So while wholesalers are busy chasing hedge funds that no longer want the deal, and agents are competing for listings that institutional iBuyers won’t touch, this whole segment is expanding in plain sight. Published June 23, 2026, Tristan Navera’s Realtor.com piece puts it plainly: mom-and-pop investors are now dominating the market, not supplementing it.

The “hidden goldmine” framing isn’t hype — it’s about visibility. Or rather, the lack of it.

Most wholesalers built their buyer lists around big fish. Most agents never even considered that their next repeat client might own three rentals in the suburbs and is quietly looking for a fourth. The outreach systems, the scripts, the targeting — all of it was built for a different buyer profile.

Pro tip: If your CRM (whether you’re using REsimpli or HubSpot) doesn’t have a segment specifically tagged for small landlords, you’re essentially flying blind on the fastest-growing buyer category right now.

The opportunity isn’t complicated. Mom-and-pop investors buy on fundamentals — cash flow, neighborhood trajectory, price-to-rent ratios. They move slower than institutions, but they’re still moving. And unlike a corporate acquisitions desk, they’ll actually pick up the phone.

Why This Matters for Your Business

The math here is pretty hard to ignore.

Realtor.com’s June 2026 investor report is direct about it: two-thirds of investor-purchased stock is now going to mom-and-pop buyers as Wall Street retreats ahead of new federal caps on institutional ownership. That’s not a temporary dip. It’s a structural reshuffling of who’s actually buying properties — and if your outreach list still looks like it did three years ago, you’re pitching to yesterday’s market.

Key Stat: Two-thirds of investor stock is now flowing to mom-and-pop buyers as institutional players exit, per the Realtor.com Real Estate Investor Report 2026.

Most wholesalers and agents I talk to are still chasing the same institutional contacts they built relationships with when iBuyers and hedge funds were gobbling up everything. Makes sense — those deals were big, predictable, easy to systematize. But that window’s closing fast.

Small landlords don’t behave like institutions. They’re not on a quarterly acquisition schedule. They buy when the deal emotionally makes sense, when they’ve got liquidity, when trust is there. Which means they don’t respond well to cold blast emails or generic drip sequences. They need a different approach entirely — more conversation, less funnel.

The NAR’s 2025 Technology Survey found that social media, CRM tools, and local MLS access produced the highest volume of quality leads over the trailing 12 months. Not cold data pulls alone. Not paid ads by themselves. The combination of relationship-driven outreach plus the right tools — that’s where deals with micro investors actually come from.

Think about what that means for your pipeline. If mom-and-pop landlords now dominate buyer activity, and they respond to trust-based outreach, then whoever builds those relationships first wins.

Pro tip: Don’t try to automate your way to a mom-and-pop investor relationship. They’ll sniff it out immediately. One genuine conversation beats 50 templated follow-ups — I’ve seen this play out enough times to just say it plainly.

The agents and wholesalers ignoring this segment aren’t just missing deals. They’re handing them to whoever’s willing to pick up the phone.

Key Strategies and Best Practices

Mom-and-pop investors aren’t hanging out at REIA meetups waiting for you to pitch them. They’re living normal lives — managing a couple rentals on the side, checking their phone between meetings. So how you reach them matters as much as what you say.

Start with your data stack. BatchLeads and PropStream both let you filter by portfolio size — so you can pull lists of owners with 1-5 properties and skip the institutional noise entirely. Stack absentee owner filters with equity percentages and you’ve got a pretty clean picture of who’s actually a motivated micro investor. Most wholesalers run blanket lists and wonder why conversion’s rough. I’d narrow before you dial, every time.

Key Stat: Two-thirds of investor-purchased stock is now flowing to mom-and-pop buyers as Wall Street exits ahead of new federal caps, per the Realtor.com Real Estate Investor Report 2026.

Cold calling still converts — but the script has to match the person. A landlord who owns three houses doesn’t want to hear the same pitch you’d run on a fix-and-flip buyer. They’re thinking about headaches. Maintenance. Maybe a tenant who hasn’t paid in two months. Lead with that. “Do you have any properties you’re thinking about unloading?” goes further than a canned opener every single time.

On the tech side, the NAR’s REALTOR® Technology Survey (published September 2025) found that social media, CRM tools, and local MLS generated the highest-quality leads over the prior 12 months. Worth paying attention to that order — social before MLS. Mom-and-pop landlords are reachable on Facebook Groups and local community pages in ways that institutional buyers just aren’t.

Pro tip: Facebook Groups for local landlords are goldmines. Join three in your market, answer questions for a month before you ever pitch anything, and you’ll get inbound messages from owners ready to sell. Takes patience but it works.

Pair that social presence with a solid CRM — REsimpli works well for wholesalers specifically — and you can tag micro investors separately, run drip sequences that speak their language, and track touchpoints without letting anyone fall through the cracks.

A simple targeting framework looks something like this:

Signal What It Tells You
1-5 property portfolio True mom-and-pop range
High equity, long hold period May be open to selling
Absentee owner status Managing remotely — often a pain point
Multiple inquiries / tax liens Landlord fatigue is likely setting in

Outbound calling is still the fastest path to a real conversation. If you’re doing this in-house, dial from a local number — connect rates jump when you’re not showing up as an out-of-state area code. If you want someone else running the phones while you focus on negotiations, that’s where outsourced appointment setting (like what Televista does) can take a lot off your plate without losing the human touch these conversations need.

Tools and Technology Comparison

Most wholesalers and agents are running the same tech stack they had three years ago. That’s fine for chasing institutional buyers — but mom-and-pop investors are a different animal, and your tools need to reflect that.

Start with your CRM. HubSpot works well for agents who want a clean pipeline with email sequences built in, but I’d honestly lean toward REsimpli for wholesalers specifically — it’s built with real estate investor workflows in mind, not retrofitted from a generic sales tool. You can tag contacts by portfolio size, track follow-up cadence, and log call dispositions without a lot of custom setup.

For dialing, Mojo Dialer and CallTools are the two worth knowing. Mojo’s triple-line dialer is solid if you’re running smaller lists with more personalized pitches — which is exactly what mom-and-pop outreach demands. CallTools handles higher volume better, but volume isn’t the play here. Depth is.

Pro tip: Don’t just dump 5,000 small landlord contacts into a power dialer and blast through them. A list of 200 well-filtered micro investors, worked carefully over 6-8 touch points, will almost always outperform a spray-and-pray run of thousands. I’ve seen teams learn this the hard way.

On the lead quality side, the NAR’s 2025 Technology Survey found that social media, CRM, and local MLS were the top three tools producing the highest-quality leads over the prior 12 months — beating out a lot of fancier, pricier platforms. That tracks. Mom-and-pop landlords aren’t hiding in some obscure database. They’re in your MLS, on Facebook groups, and findable through BatchLeads filters.

Key Stat: Per the NAR Technology Survey, eSignature, social media, and drone photography were the most widely adopted tech tools among REALTORS® — but lead quality winners were far simpler: CRM and MLS.

The same survey confirms what most experienced outbound teams already know — fancy doesn’t mean effective.

Stack your tools around the workflow, not the other way around. For mom-and-pop outreach, that means a clean CRM, a dialer built for conversation quality, and a solid list from BatchLeads or PropStream. Everything else is noise.

Step-by-Step Implementation

You’ve got the strategy, the tools, the data. Now actually build the thing.

Step 1: Pull your list. Open BatchLeads or PropStream and filter for owners with 1–5 properties, absentee status preferred, single-family or small multifamily. Set a geographic radius you can actually service. Don’t go pulling 10,000 records on day one — you won’t work them properly. Start with 500–800 and do it right.

Step 2: Segment by motivation signal. Sort your list by length of ownership (8+ years = likely equity-rich and possibly tired), out-of-state ownership, and any tax delinquency flags. Not every mom-and-pop landlord is ready to sell — but these filters get you closer to the ones who might be thinking about it.

Step 3: Build your outreach sequence in REsimpli. Cold call first, voicemail drop if no answer, SMS follow-up within 24 hours, direct mail piece sent same week. Four touchpoints minimum before you write someone off. Most people give up at one.

Pro tip: Don’t pitch a deal on the first call. Ask a question. Something like “are you planning to hold that property long-term or is there a number that would make sense for you?” gets way more traction than launching into a script.

Step 4: Track everything. Tag contacts by response type in your CRM — “motivated,” “not now,” “no contact.” The “not now” pile is underrated, honestly. A landlord who said call back in three months actually meant it. Set that task and do it.

Step 5: Feed warm leads into a human follow-up loop. Cold calling at volume is where a lot of operators get stuck — Televista handles this for real estate outreach teams that don’t have bandwidth to run consistent dials while managing deals. Worth knowing.

Key Stat: Per the Realtor.com Real Estate Investor Report 2026, two-thirds of investor stock is now flowing to mom-and-pop buyers — which means your outreach timing on this market shift actually matters right now.

The NAR’s REALTOR® Technology Survey confirmed social media and CRM produced the highest quality leads across the last 12 months. Build your sequence around both.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Most people who fumble with mom-and-pop outreach don’t fail because of bad strategy. They fail because of lazy execution on details that seem minor until they blow up a deal.

Mistake #1: Treating them like institutional buyers. Sending a templated bulk email about “off-market acquisition opportunities” is the fastest way to get ignored. Mom-and-pop landlords — the people now absorbing two-thirds of investor-purchased stock as Wall Street retreats — respond to conversations, not pitch decks.

Mistake #2: Skipping the CRM setup before you start dialing. I’ve seen this wreck campaigns. You pull a list from BatchLeads, start calling, get five solid conversations — and then have no system to follow up. REsimpli or even HubSpot will save you from losing warm leads to disorganization.

Pro tip: Set a follow-up task the second a call ends. Don’t rely on memory. Mom-and-pop investors often need 3–5 touches before they’re ready to move — they’re not in a hurry the way a fund manager would be.

Mistake #3: Over-indexing on social media and ignoring direct outreach. The NAR Technology Survey found social was a top lead source, sure. But it works for agents building awareness — not for wholesalers trying to find a landlord who’s quietly tired of tenants and hasn’t listed anything publicly.

Mistake #4: Treating every small landlord the same. Someone with one rental property has completely different motivations than someone sitting on eight. Segment before you call. Always.

Key Stat: Two-thirds of investor stock is flowing to mom-and-pop buyers — meaning your pipeline quality depends entirely on how well you qualify who you’re actually talking to.

What This Means Going Forward

The window here is real — and it won’t stay open forever.

Realtor.com’s June 2026 report confirmed what we’ve been watching build for months: institutional money is pulling back, and two-thirds of investor-purchased stock is flowing straight to mom-and-pop buyers. That’s not a blip. The structural shift is already underway, and whoever builds relationships with small landlords now gets to ride it.

Key Stat: Two-thirds of investor stock is now going to mom-and-pop buyers as Wall Street retreats — Realtor.com, June 2026

Most wholesalers and agents won’t adjust fast enough. Honestly, that’s your advantage.

The NAR Technology Survey found social media, CRM, and local MLS were the top lead sources producing quality results — tools you already have access to. You don’t need a bigger budget. You need a sharper focus.

Pro tip: Pick one market segment — say, absentee owners with 2–4 properties — and own it. Don’t spray outreach everywhere and wonder why nothing sticks.

Here’s your next move: Pull a targeted list from BatchLeads today, load it into REsimpli, and start dialing. If you’d rather have trained callers running that outreach while you focus on closing, book a strategy call with Televista — we’ll help you build the pipeline from scratch.

Mom-and-pop investors are already dominating the market. The question’s just whether they’re working with you or someone else.

Stop Guessing. Start Closing.

Televista runs managed cold calling and appointment-setting campaigns across real estate, solar, roofing, and b2b — we handle the prospecting, dialing, and appointment setting so you can focus on what you do best: closing deals.

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