Trump Seeks to Ban Institutional Investors From Buying Single-Family Homes

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he plans to ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes, in a move he hopes will address housing affordability in the U.S.

“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,” Trump wrote in a social media post on Wednesday. “People live in homes, not corporations.”

Trump added that he plans to provide more details on his proposal at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland later this month.

Large institutional investors such as Blackstone and J.P. Morgan Chase have been buying up single-family homes in recent years to capitalize on growing demand for housing amid high mortgage rates and home prices. Analysts say the added competition has made it more difficult for individual buyers to purchase homes, as houses purchased by investors are typically turned into rentals.

Following Trump’s announcement on Wednesday, shares of Blackstone — which has one of the largest single-family home portfolios in the country — fell by as much as 9.3 percent, Bloomberg reported, while shares of developer American Homes 4 Rent dropped by 6.3 percent, CBS News reported.

“Our ownership of U.S. single-family homes represents about 2 percent of our real estate AUM and 0.5 percent of the overall firm,” a spokesperson for Blackstone said in a statement to Commercial Observer. “We have also been a net seller of homes over the last decade — with our holdings down more than one-fifth. That said, we believe our current portfolio is poised to continue to perform quite well and operate at the highest standards for residents.”

Trump’s announcement got some mixed reactions from industry leaders.

“Blaming institutional ownership for housing un-affordability is inaccurate and gets both the problem and the solution wrong,” Sean Dobson, chairman and CEO of real estate investment firm The Amherst Group, said in a statement. “America’s housing crisis stems from years of policy failure, not the families who rent or the capital that houses them. Putting institutional rental housing at risk threatens real families and is unacceptable.

“Through private, unsubsidized investment, institutional capital restores neglected housing and delivers real solutions at a time when much of the housing finance system no longer works,” Dobson added. “Our industry is not the cause of the housing crisis, it is part of the solution.”

Meanwhile, Sam Chandan, director of the Chao-Hon Chen Institute for Global Real Estate Finance at New York University, said it’s worth re-evaluating the housing affordability challenge in the U.S.

“The housing affordability challenge facing American families is real and deserving of serious policy attention at every level of government,” Chandan told CO.

Institutional investment into single-family homes has been on the uptick recently. In the second quarter of 2025, both large and small institutional investors bought about one out of every three single-family homes sold during the period, according to data cited by Axios.

As recently as 2023, large institutional investors — including those owning 100 or more properties — held less than 4 percent of the nation’s single-family rental stock, according to the Urban Institute. Meanwhile, small investors — defined as owning fewer than 10 properties — accounted for more than 90 percent of investor-owned single-family homes at that time.

It’s unclear how much Trump’s potential ban might affect housing prices, but Chandan said that in subset metropolitan areas where institutional investors are most active, those owners hold more than 10 percent of the local single-family rental stock, affecting local rents and home prices. U.S. home prices have surged by nearly 55 percent nationwide between the start of 2020 and the third quarter of 2025, according to a report from the National Association of Home Builders.

Chandan said the best governmental answer to the housing shortage is to create conditions that lead to more new housing.

“In addressing availability and affordability, the most effective interventions in these markets will allow for more and higher density construction through the channel of zoning reform and other mechanisms,” Chandan said.

And if a larger portion of new homes are for rent rather than for sale, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, he said.

“For households unable or unwilling to purchase — whether due to affordability constraints, employment mobility, or life-stage preferences — rental housing provides access to single-family neighborhoods, school districts and amenities that might otherwise be inaccessible,” Chandan added. “Homes for rent serve an important role in meeting the housing needs of American families.”

Trump’s announcement comes as he struggles to appeal to more American voters. Based on a Gallup poll released in December, only 36 percent of Americans said they approved of Trump’s job performance.

A spokesperson for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.