President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order aimed at curbing institutional buyers on Wall Street from acquiring single-family homes, in a bid to help improve housing affordability for first-time buyers and young families.
Order To Make ‘Homeownership Affordable Again’
According to a White House fact sheet, the action is designed to stop large investment firms from using federal housing programs to expand their rental portfolios and to ensure that homes are steered toward families instead, who have been priced out of the market.
“Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to protect the American Dream by making sure that large institutional investors do not buy single-family homes that could otherwise be purchased by families,” the administration said in the fact sheet.
The order directs federal agencies to prevent programs from “approving, insuring, guaranteeing, securitizing, or facilitating sales of single-family homes to institutional investors.”
It also requires agencies to promote “first-look policies,” giving individual buyers priority access to foreclosed properties before large investors can bid.
Trump instructed the Treasury Department to review rules governing institutional ownership of homes and asked the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to examine whether major landlords have engaged in anti-competitive practices.
Housing officials were also told to demand greater disclosure from companies and institutions participating in federal assistance programs.
The fact sheet framed the order as Trump’s attempt at making “homeownership affordable again” after years of Wall Street firms “crowding out first-time buyers and young families.”
Trump Turns Populist Ahead of Mid-Terms
This comes amid a string of populist measures recently announced by the administration, including plans to cap credit card interest rates at 10% ahead of the midterm elections later this year.
According to a 2024 report by the Government Accountability Office, institutional investors owned 450,000 homes across the country, which accounted for 3% of all single-family rental homes available, with the five largest investors owning 300,000 homes.
One of the biggest institutional homebuyers, BlackRock Inc. (NYSE:BLK), however, noted recently that it does not own any single-family homes. “We have other real estate exposure, but we do not own single-family housing,” the company’s spokesperson said in an interview with Benzinga.
Image via Shutterstock/ Joshua Sukoff
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
