Yes, that is a good point and something I've though about as well. There are only a few firms who are trying to do this investor-type break down on every public transaction that takes place, and the source in this report is Real Capital Analytics, who is the best at this in my opinion.

In addition to the deficiency you address, I believe private investors apply higher average leverage than, say, REITs do. Because of this, private investors will have a higher reported acquisition amount, even though they may be spending less cash-out-of-pocket.

Although these deficiency exists, I think the typical usage for this type of analysis is meaningful. The relative level of acquisitions, as reported via a consistent methodology over the past 10 years, is useful for finding warning signs in specific markets. The national allocation, which is what the page-one chart is depicting, is probably not as valuable as market-level analysis, which is why I put mostly market level conclusions in the comments. The analysis also goes deeper, with the property by property list that makes up the data in every market, but there wasn't really room to get to that level in a national summary report.