President Donald Trump announced he will take steps to stop large investors from buying single-family homes.
Trump wrote on Truth Social:
For a very long time, buying and owning a home was considered the pinnacle of the American Dream. It was the reward for working hard, and doing the right thing, but now, because of the Record High Inflation caused by Joe Biden and the Democrats in Congress, that American Dream is increasingly out of reach for far too many people, especially younger Americans. It is for that reason, and much more, that 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. People live in homes, not corporations. I will discuss this topic, including further Housing and Affordability proposals, and more, at my speech in Davos in two weeks.
It’s well known that these large investors have hampered people’s abilities to buy a home.
The Wall Street Journal documented these obstacles back in 2016:
Some real-estate agents in cities that have seen their foreclosure crisis ease said investors have moved up from bank-owned properties and now are competing for traditional, low-price homes that normally would be fodder for first-time buyers.Lisa C. Ford, secretary for the Orlando Regional Realtor Association [Lisa served as secretary in 2016. She’s no longer secretary], said buyers there can expect to compete against at least one cash offer for any home priced below $300,000.In Orlando, 39% of sales in October were all-cash, according to the latest data available from CoreLogic, down 5.6 percentage points from a year earlier but 23 percentage points greater than in 2006. Miami and West Palm Beach, Fla., also have seen declines but about half of homes there still sell for cash.
Today, The Wall Street Journal noted that these large investors like Blackstone “own a tiny slice of the overall housing market.”
Bloomberg reported that all investors, large and small, account “for about 30% of single-family home purchases in the beginning of 2025.”
But it doesn’t lessen the impact:
Investors of all sizes, including individual investors, have spent billions of dollars buying homes. At the 2022 peak, they bought more than one in every four single-family homes sold. They tend to buy in desirable markets near good schools where traditional home buyers would seek to own.—In some cities, institutional investors hold a much larger share of homes than they hold nationally. During the pandemic housing boom, investors accounted for more than 20% of all home sales in some hot markets, including Houston, Miami, Phoenix and Las Vegas.Sunbelt cities have been a particular target for institutional homeownership. A 2024 analysis by the Government Accountability Office said large institutions owned 25% of rental homes in Atlanta and 18% in Charlotte.
California, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, and North Carolina have already proposed laws that would either stop or restrict large investors from buying these homes.
Nebraska State Sen. Justin Wayne introduced Legislative Bill 1405 in February 2024. His bill bans “a corporation, hedge fund or other business” from purchasing “a single-family home in Nebraska unless that entity is domiciled in Nebraska and its principal members are state residents.”
I raised my eyebrows when Bloomberg said that industry experts do not like the idea because those companies are “pouring money into a troubled market.”
Hhhhmm…Bloomberg did not name those experts. I wonder if they have connections to these big companies:
In 2021 Blackstone bought Home Partners of America in a $6 billion deal that added 17,000 rentals to its holdings. More recently, it bought Toronto-based Tricon Residential Inc. in a $3.5 billion transaction that added 38,000 US rental houses. Steve Schwarzman, Blackstone’s chief executive officer, has been a major donor to Trump’s political operation for years.
I have a hard time listening to or believing most experts in the economic sphere, so I’ll take that info with a grain of salt.
[Featured image via YouTube]
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY