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(NewsNation) – Real estate investors bought every quarter of the country’s most affordable homes in the second quarter of 2024, as home ownership remains out of reach for many Americans.

According to a report from Redfin, investor home purchases rose 3% year over year to total $43 billion, marking the largest increase since 2022. This is a sign that investor activity is stabilizing in a market that has suffered volatility in recent years. While this is potentially good news for investors and sellers, rising prices mean that owning a home remains an unattainable goal for many first-time buyers.

“One reason real estate investors are emerging from hibernation is to capitalize on strong demand from renters,” said Sheharyar Bokhari, senior economist at Redfin. “Higher home prices and mortgage rates have made home ownership unaffordable for many Americans, fueling demand for rental housing. Investors, many of whom can afford to pay cash to avoid high mortgage rates, are taking advantage of this demand.”

The national average cost to purchase a home increased 4.9% from a year ago, pushing the value of an existing single-family home up to about $422,100.

Unaffordable housing prices have created an opportunity for investors, whose home purchases have more than doubled during the pandemic and fallen nearly 50% over the past year. Investors bought one in six of all U.S. homes sold in the second quarter of this year.

San Jose, California, and Las Vegas, Nevada, saw the highest increase in investor home purchases in the second quarter, at 27%, followed by Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

As investors snap up homes in the Golden State, California’s homeless population is projected to increase by as much as 7.5% between 2022 and 2023, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. The state accounts for nearly a third of the U.S. homeless population, with about 181,000 Californians in need of housing, The Associated Press reported.

Meanwhile, new construction, which for a while kept rents stagnant, is slowing – a sign that rents may soon rise. Apartment owner Equity Residential agreed to buy 11 apartment complexes for $964 million earlier this month. It’s the largest U.S. multifamily acquisition by a publicly traded real estate investment trust in seven years and just one of many high-profile deals this year, Redfin noted.