New order targets big landlords as affordability pressures squeeze first‑time buyers
President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order that aims to curb large Wall Street investors’ purchases of single‑family homes, a move that gives first‑time buyers a better shot in a tight market.
The order directed multiple agencies to restrict federal support for acquisitions of single‑family homes by “large institutional investors” and to favor sales to individual owner‑occupants instead.
Within 60 days, housing, agriculture, veterans and procurement agencies, along with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, were instructed to issue guidance to prevent federal programs from facilitating bulk purchases and disposals to big investors, while expanding “first‑look” opportunities and anti‑circumvention rules for households.
In the text, Trump cast the measure as a response to affordability strains and corporate consolidation in key markets.
“Buying and owning a home has long been considered the pinnacle of the American dream and a way for families to invest and build lifetime wealth,” he wrote.
“But because of the recent high inflation and interest rates caused by the previous administration, that American dream has been increasingly out of reach for too many of our citizens, especially first-time homebuyers.”
The order argued that institutional capital has tilted bidding wars against households.
“A growing share of single-family homes, often concentrated in certain communities, have been purchased by large Wall Street investors, crowding out families seeking to buy homes,” Trump wrote.
“Hardworking young families cannot effectively compete for starter homes with Wall Street firms and their vast resources.”
Trump framed the issue in moral terms as well as economic ones. “Neighborhoods and communities once controlled by middle-class American families are now run by faraway corporate interests,” he wrote.
“People live in homes, not corporations.” A White House fact sheet echoed that language, saying the policy was aimed at “putting American families first in the housing market.”
Under the order, the Treasury Department was told to review rules governing large investors’ ownership of single‑family homes and “consider revising them” to support the new policy.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has to collect ownership and management information from landlords in federal assistance programs “to determine any involvement of large institutional investors.”
The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission were instructed to scrutinize “substantial acquisitions” of single‑family homes for anticompetitive effects and to prioritize antitrust enforcement against “coordinated vacancy and pricing strategies” in local rental markets.
Build‑to‑rent projects that are “planned, permitted, financed, and constructed as rental communities” are carved out through “appropriate, narrowly tailored exceptions,” preserving a channel for professionally managed rental supply.
Senior White House staff were also told to draw up legislation to “codify the policy” and prevent large investors from buying homes “that could otherwise be purchased by families.”
Debates over investor ownership and affordability
A Government Accountability Office review found that by 2022, 32 institutional investors collectively owned about 450,000 single‑family homes and that in some Sunbelt markets, large investors represented a sizable share of single‑family rentals.
Those 450,000 homes amounted to roughly 3% of all single‑family rentals nationally, suggesting institutional players still controlled only a slice of the overall stock even as their presence loomed large in specific neighborhoods.
Investors’ cash and financing advantages keep them active while owner‑occupiers pull back. Investors typically have cash and financing advantages, unlike other client types whose budgets have been squeezed by higher housing costs, even as affordability challenges and limited supply weigh on traditional buyers.
Economists and industry leaders also stressed that easing pressure on first‑time buyers would require more than headline‑grabbing restrictions, from unlocking existing inventory to tackling insurance and construction costs that have quietly eroded purchasing power.
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