Investor home purchases drop 30% as price gains slow

Home sales have dropped for nine straight months, driven by surging mortgage rates, and now investors are pulling back even more than traditional homebuyers.

Investor home purchases dropped just over 30% in the third quarter of this year compared with the same period last year, according to real estate brokerage Redfin. That’s the biggest drop in investor sales since the Great Recession over a decade ago, with the exception of a very brief stall in the first two months of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

The drop in investor sales outpaced the drop in overall home purchases,…