President Trump said on Wednesday that he will take steps to prevent institutional investors from buying single-family homes, claiming the move would help make housing more affordable for Americans.
In a social media post, Mr. Trump said that the dream of home ownership has become increasingly out of reach for many Americans, and that action is needed to allow more people to reach the milestone of owning a residence.
“I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it,” Mr. Trump wrote. “People live in homes, not corporations.”
He added that he will provide more details about the proposal at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, later this month.
The White House declined to provide more information on Mr. Trump’s plans for restricting large investors from acquiring homes.
Shares of major home leasing and management companies fell sharply immediately after Mr. Trump’s announcement. Invitation Homes’ stock price slid more than 7%, while American Homes 4 Rent dropped 6.3%. Investment giant Blackstone, which also owns and rents homes, sank more than 4%.
Institutional investors account for roughly 1% of total single-family housing stock, according to an August analysis by researchers at the American Enterprise Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. The study defined such investors as those owning at least 100 properties.
The analysis also noted that institutional ownership varies nationwide, reaching 4.2% in Atlanta, 2.6% in Dallas and 2.2% in Houston. But these investors tend not to dominate neighborhoods, even if they’re generally more concentrated in lower- and middle-income communities.
Impact on home prices and rent
Still, the recent rise of institutional investors purchasing single-family homes can have negative spillover effects for consumers, research shows.
In 2024, the Government Accountability Office found that institutional investment can increase rents and home prices, particularly in geographies with high concentrations of investor-owned properties.
Advocates for policies benefiting property owners said they would support policies that block large investors from scooping up properties.
“We are very glad to see that the administration is squarely focusing on housing and housing affordability,” Colin Allen, executive director of the American Property Owners Alliance, a nonpartisan advocacy group, told CBS News. “Each home that is taken off the market by an institutional investor is one less for an owner-occupant to try to move into at a time when there is a lot of competition for homes for sale.”
More than 75% of homes across the U.S. are unaffordable for most Americans, according to Bankrate, a personal finance site.
Data from the National Association of Realtors show that only 24% of home purchases in 2024 were made by first-time homebuyers, down from 50% in 2010. Housing economists also point to a severe shortage of inventory for the soaring cost of homes in recent years.
Goldman Sachs analysts in October estimated the U.S. would need to add 3 million to 4 million homes above the normal pace of construction levels to help ease residential real estate prices.
A better solution?
Some experts are skeptical that Mr. Trump’s proposal to restrict investor ownership of single-family homes would help ease housing costs for Americans.
Institutional investors contribute to the housing supply by buying and renovating derelict homes, and then putting them back on the market, said Edward Pinto, senior fellow and co-director of the AEI Housing Center at the American Enterprise Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
A ban on real estate trusts, private equity firms and other housing market investors from buying homes could also have unintended consequences by discouraging such players from selling their existing properties, he added.
A better way to create affordable housing, Pinto said, is to make more efficient use of the nation’s existing housing stock by allowing homeowners to rent out unused rooms tax-free, and also by incentivizing states to build more homes.
Aimee Picchi
contributed to this report.
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