Dive Brief:
- President Donald Trump issued an executive order Tuesday designed to favor sales of single-family homes to individuals over “large institutional investors” by promoting “first-look” policies for individual owners and small-scale investors.
- The order directs agencies to issue guidance preventing federal programs from aiding sales of single-family homes to institutional investors. It also tasks the attorney general and Federal Trade Commission chair with scrutinizing large institutional investors for "anti-competitive practices” in the single-family home rental market.
- “Institutional buyers with vast resources outbid hardworking families, turning neighborhoods into investor rental portfolios instead of communities,” the order states. A study last fall found that large investors with portfolios exceeding 1,000 single-family homes made up around 2% of the housing market.
Dive Insight:
Trump began 2026 with a number of promises to shake up the housing market and address the ongoing affordability crisis, including purchasing $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities. Limiting large investors from buying single-family homes will further open the door for middle-class families, he said.
Trump stated that the order would ensure “that Federal housing programs prioritize families, not Wall Street, and sets the stage for legislation to ensure that large institutional investors do not acquire single-family homes.”
National Association of Realtors Executive Vice President and Chief Advocacy Officer Shannon McGahn said the organization was “encouraged” by the administration’s focus on the housing affordability and supply crisis.
“We share the goal of ensuring there are enough places for people to live and of expanding access to homeownership—especially for first-time buyers—and ensuring that housing policy strengthens communities rather than limiting opportunity,” McGahn said in a statement last week.
The share of residential purchases by corporations has remained “relatively stable” over the past decade,” according to NAR, with LLCs accounting for the majority of entity purchases.
“When purchases by corporations and companies only are isolated, the national share falls to 3.2% in 2024, underscoring that large, institutional buyers represent a much smaller portion of total market activity than headline figures sometimes imply,” Nadia Evangelou, NAR senior economist, said in a NAR Realtor News article.
As of 2023, six cities contained 45% of the country’s holdings by “mega” investors with more than 1,000 properties, according to the Urban Institute. Atlanta was the most concentrated with 72,000 “mega” operator-owned properties, followed by Phoenix (33,000), Dallas (27,000). Charlotte, North Carolina, and Houston had 24,000 each, with 23,000 in Tampa, per the Urban Institute.
The share of first-time homeowners across the U.S. fell to 21% last year, a historic low, as the typical age of first-time homebuyers reached an all-time-high of 40.
