ATLANTA — A new study on investor companies with real estate portfolios ranked which major cities were the most likely locations for those companies to “panic sell” their holdings if the economy goes south.
Which brings the study down south, to Atlanta.
The study by MarketWise named Atlanta as the place where investors are most likely to ditch their portfolios if the market crashes.
The company said it used years’ worth of data to put the rankings together.
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“Market downturns test more than portfolios. They also test investors’ nerves, habits, and sometimes, even their sleep schedules,” MarketWise said. “MarketWise analyzed three years of Google search behavior across 100 cities, from July 2023 through June 2026, and surveyed 1,007 U.S. investors to see when market anxiety turns into action. The results reveal how far stocks must fall before investors sell, where investors are most nervous about a crash, and how concerns about an AI bubble are influencing portfolios.”
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Channel 2 Action News reported investors owned about 20% of all homes in the metro Atlanta area in 2025.
MarketWise reported if the market drops 18% or more, nearly half of all investors would start selling off their properties.
And when it comes to where that is most likely to happen in a big way is Atlanta.
“Atlanta is the panic-selling capital of America, logging 7,528 searches about market crashes and selling out per 100,000 residents between July 2023 and June 2026,” MarketWise said.
The study found that more than half of investors think an artificial intelligence bubble is forming and that they’re starting to pare back tech or AI holdings as a result.
Others reported feeling physically sick or anxious, and that they’d lost sleep, due to stress over the economy.
In every metropolitan area studied, MarketWise said Atlanta topped every category for concerns about market crashes and subsequent property sales.
Atlanta also topped searches for high-yield savings accounts, money market funds and “safe investments,” where 45,680 out of every 100,000 residents want to know how to save or move their money.
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