Trump says he wants to ban large investors from buying single-family homes

• President Donald Trump announced a plan to block large investors from buying single-family homes.
• It could affect firms that have moved into the home-rental market.
• Big investors buying into housing have been a target of both political parties.

President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he wants to ban “large institutional investors” from buying single-family homes in the US.

“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 said in a Truth Social post. “People live in homes, not corporations.”

The decision could negatively impact private equity companies like Blackstone that have bought up significant numbers of homes. Blackstone shares dropped immediately following Trump’s announcement.

Institutional investors own a small fraction of US homes, Business Insider’s James Rodriguez has reported. Parcl Labs found in October 2023 that investors with at least 10 units in their portfolio owned roughly 3.4% of all single-family homes in the country. Big investors with at least 1,000 units — a group that includes major companies like AMH Homes, Invitation Homes, Tricon Residential, and Pretium — owned just 0.73%.

The Government Accountability Office reported in 2024 that institutional investors own about two percent of single-family rental homes in the US. But that share is much higher in certain housing markets, particularly in the southeast.

In a January 2025 memo, Blackstone said that higher home prices are the result of a shortage of housing, rather than institutional investors buying up homes.

Institutional buyers of American homes have also been targeted by Democrats.

Former Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, introduced a bill in 2023 — the Stop Predatory Investing Act — that would prohibit landlords who own more than 50 single-family homes from obtaining interest and depreciation deductions. As a presidential candidate, former Vice President Kamala Harris endorsed that legislation.

Another 2023 Democratic-backed bill in the House and Senate would prohibit hedge funds from buying or owning single-family homes in the US. The End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act would force hedge funds to sell all the single-family homes they own over 10 years.

This is a developing story; check back here for updates.