Nearly all of the buyers at distressed property auctions are low-volume, and over 90% of them are local, according to Auction.com’s 2026 Buyer Insights Report. One of the most important conclusions from the report is that an estimated 96% of buyers bought 10 or less properties overall in 2025, and 94% of those polled identified as local community developers or owner-occupants.
“Our buyers are main street,” said Ali Haralson, Co-CEO of Auction.com. “They buy where they live and improve housing supply and affordability in their local communities.”
The report covers:
- How the buyer mix changed year-over-year
- What motivates buyers beyond financial returns
- Which acquisition channels buyers prefer now
- How buyers approach occupied properties
- What renovation and holding costs reveal about buyer commitment
Further, some 87% of buyers who buy occupied residences at auction provide the present occupant with a smooth transition to new housing. Approximately 20% spend more than $50,000 on repair and holding fees, while over two-thirds (65%) spend more than $20,000.
In 2026, roughly 94% of Auction.com buyers identified as either local community developers or owner-occupants, an increase from 89% in the 2025 buyer survey. Compared to 12% in the 2024 study, just 6% of customers identified as some other type of buyer. Nonprofit developers, real estate brokers, and hybrid buyers like “owner-occupant rehabilitators” were among the other buyer groups. Some 76% of survey participants identified as local community developers, up from 63% in the 2025 survey, while 18% identified as owner-occupants, down from 26% in the 2025 survey.
Just 1% of buyers reported buying more than 25 properties in 2025, and just 3% reported buying between 11 and 25 homes. A separate review of Auction.com sales data shows that 99% of Auction.com purchasers acquired 10 or fewer properties on the Auction.com platform in 2025 (not including other non-Auction.com purchases) and 79% of buyers purchased just one Auction.com property all year long. According to the same data, some 86% of all sales on Auction.com in 2025 came from purchasers who bought 10 or fewer properties.
Building Generational Wealth to Further Benefit Communities
Ninety percent of Auction.com customers stated that their primary goal for buying in real estate was to build generational wealth. Building generational wealth was cited by 43% of buyers as their sole motivation, but 47% said they were also motivated by improving neighborhoods, offering affordable housing, increasing homeownership, and generating employment. Additionally, 10% of respondents claimed that their sole reason for making real estate investments was to assist the neighborhood.
Improving neighborhoods ranked highest among survey participants who cited helping the local community as a motivator (35%), followed by increasing homeownership (25%), offering affordable housing (24%), and generating jobs (18%).
The largest percentage of any buyer category, some 72% of local community developers polled stated they support at least three jobs annually. Only 45% of owner-occupant buyers reported supporting three or more jobs a year. Given that many owner-occupant buyers invest a significant amount of their own “sweat equity” in the homes they live in, analysts revealed that this was not all that shocking.
Overall, 66% of purchasers surveyed reported supporting at least three jobs per year, compared to 58% of other purchases. Additionally, 16% of local community developers reported supporting 11 or more jobs annually, compared to 9% of owner-occupant buyers and 13% of all other buyers.
Up from 57% in the 2025 Auction.com buyer survey, nearly 60% of local community developers stated that renovating and reselling to owner-occupants was their main strategy for purchasing properties on Auction.com. While 36% of investors stated that renovating and reselling to owner-occupants was their main tactic for houses bought on Auction.com, other investors were less likely to do so. Renovating and holding as a rental was the primary plan of one-third of local community developer buyers, while renovating and holding for a long-term investment, like an Opportunity Zone investment, was the key approach of an extra five percent.
In total, roughly 5% of consumers who responded to the poll claimed to use another kind of tactic, while other strategies included purchasing real estate for children and for clients.
“When you take a boarded-up house and turn it into the nicest one on the block, it changes how people feel about where they live. Neighbors come by, they’re excited—it creates momentum,” said Matthew Guy, Owner of Hope City Homes in Baltimore and Owner of Hope City Homes. “I call it Hope City Homes for two reasons. One is when you’re helping the city out by fixing up abandoned row houses, you’re bringing hope t o the neighborhoods. And then also all my buyers were first-time homeowners. So, it’s kind of a new start for them.”
Market Sees Shift in Buyer Preference Toward Online Auctions
In the 2026 study, over one-third of buyers stated that online or remote bid foreclosure auctions were their preferred method of purchasing a property. This is the largest percentage of any technique, up from 32% in the 2025 survey and 30 percent in the 2024 survey. For 30% of buyers surveyed, in-person foreclosure auctions were the most popular way to purchase a property; this percentage increased from 28% in the 2025 survey but down from 37% in the 2024 survey.
In the 2026 Auction.com buyer survey, some 18% of purchasers stated that online bankowned (REO) auctions were their primary source for acquiring real estate, which is up from 16% in the 2024 survey but unchanged from the previous year’s poll. Off-market properties (8%) and MLS or broker networks (11%) were the other two most popular ways to buy real estate.
Compared to 51% in the 2025 poll, around half of all purchasers surveyed in 2026 stated they would be willing to purchase occupied properties at auction. Some 43% of buyers who bought two or less homes in 2025 reported purchasing inhabited properties, indicating that lower-volume buyers were less likely to do so. An estimated 61% of buyers who bought three to ten homes in 2025 and 82% of purchasers who bought eleven or more properties in 2025 were inclined to acquire occupied properties, indicating that larger-volume buyers were more likely to purchase inhabited properties.
Of all buyers that purchase occupied houses, roughly 87% stated that they provide the present resident with a smooth transition into new accommodation, including relocation assistance, the opportunity to lease back, and the option to buy back.
In 2026, 66% of buyers reported spending $20,000 or more on improvements and holding fees for houses they bought on Auction.com, a little increase from 64% in the 2025 poll. Developers in the local community were most likely to spend at least $20,000 on improvements and holding costs (71%), followed by other investors (57%) and owner-occupant purchasers (40%). Given that many owner-occupant buyers invest their own “sweat equity” in renovations, the lower percentage of owner-occupant buyers spending at least $20,000 on holding fees and renovations is not surprising.
Besides that, local community developers were most likely to spend more than $50,000 on improvements and holding costs (23%), followed by owner-occupants (13%) and other investors (7%).
To read the full report, click here.
