BlackRock Inc. (NYSE:BLK) moved on Thursday to clarify its role in the U.S. housing market after President Donald Trump announced plans to block large institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes, a proposal that triggered sharp market reactions.
In an exclusive interview with Benzinga, Christopher Berger, Director of Corporate Affairs at BlackRock, said the world’s largest asset manager has no exposure to single-family housing, countering a narrative he said has been inaccurately reported in media coverage.
"We don't buy single-family homes," Berger said. "We have other real estate exposure, but we do not own single-family housing."
A day earlier, Trump said he would move to ban large institutional investors from purchasing additional single-family homes and urge Congress to codify the policy, framing homeownership as a cornerstone of the so-called “American Dream,” which has become increasingly out of reach for U.S. families.
"People live in homes, not corporations," Trump said in a social media post.
Markets reacted fast. Asset managers and alternative investment firms sold off on Wednesday as traders priced in potential restrictions on institutional capital flowing into housing.
The announcement revived a long-running narrative that Wall Street firms are crowding families out of the housing market.
Index Investing At The Core
Berger said much of the confusion stems from a misunderstanding of BlackRock's business model—particularly its dominance in index investing.
"More than 90% of our clients' equity investments are through index strategies," he said. "We are a major investor in virtually every company and industry because those investments track third-party indices. That doesn't mean we are directing capital into specific strategies like single-family housing."
As the world's largest asset manager, BlackRock holds stakes across thousands of publicly listed companies on behalf of clients, including firms with exposure to real estate.
But Berger stressed that this indirect ownership through index funds is fundamentally different from actively buying or operating housing stock.
Berger said BlackRock has spent years trying to correct public misconceptions about its role in the housing market.
“We’ve been fighting this confusion,” he told Benzinga.
The firm launched a dedicated website in 2022 explaining that it does not buy single-family homes and has run social media campaigns and worked with fact-checkers to address the issue.
When asked whether the firm supports Trump’s goal on banning large institutional investors from buying single-family homes, Berger replied: “As we said on X, we support the President’s goal of securing the dream of home ownership for more Americans.
He added that the firm began clarifying its position years earlier.
“Just to be clear, we clarified this long before Trump announcement. We have been clarifying this since 2021,” he said.
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