Investor behavior splits hard by investor type, and that split outlasts any single market moment. Short-term flip investors stay active in almost any conditions. They're constantly hunting distressed properties, typically underwriting at roughly 50 to 60 percent of after-repair value so there's room for the rehab, the carry, and their margin. Long-term buy-and-hold investors are far more sensitive to financing. When rates are elevated, the yield on cash going into a fresh long-term rental often doesn't pencil against safer alternatives, so new money into buy-and-hold slows down. In a high-cost market like Southern California, much of the activity we see in those stretches is 1031 exchanges: investors rotating built-up equity out of an older property and into a stronger rent area or a better building class, deferring the tax rather than deploying new capital. The takeaway is a framework rather than a prediction. Flippers chase discount, holders chase yield, and when yield is scarce, exchanges and repositioning take over from fresh acquisitions. Nobody can promise where rates or prices head next, so run any specific deal on its own cash flow instead of on a headline about what investors are doing.