Trump to ban institutional investors from buying up single-family homes

President Trump said Wednesday he would ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes as part of his effort to address housing affordability.

The president did not detail specific actions he would take to stop those investors — private capital groups that invest heavily in residential real estate — from buying single-family homes.

He did say he would ask Congress to codify the action, which he would discuss during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, later this month.

“People live in homes, not corporations,” Mr. Trump said on Truth Social. “For a very long time, buying and owning a home was considered the pinnacle of the American Dream. It was the reward for working hard and doing the right thing, but now because of record-high inflation caused by Joe Biden and the Democrats in Congress, that American Dream is increasingly out of reach for far too many people, especially younger Americans.”

The president’s push to address housing affordability underscores that it will be a key issue for his party ahead of what’s expected to be brutally contested midterm elections.

Soaring prices have elevated housing costs from a largely local issue to a national one. Housing was second only to inflation in a Gallup survey of Americans’ financial worries. In a Harvard poll of voters under 30 last year, housing costs ranked as the third most important issue overall, after inflation and health care.

The national median existing single-family home price was $426,800 in the third quarter of 2025 after hitting a record high of $435,300 in the summer, according to the National Association of Realtors. The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage is 6.19%, according to Mortgage News Daily.

Housing costs are a mixed bag for politicians. On one hand, 66% of Americans own a home and benefit from rising home values. On the other hand, soaring rents and rising mortgage rates make homeownership more difficult for nearly one-third of Americans.

Several of the presidential battleground states had the largest increases in home prices between March 2020 and March 2025, according to the most recent data from Freddie Mac. On average, U.S. home prices rose 46.5% during that period.

Home prices in three swing states — Arizona (59.7%), Georgia (58.7%) and Wisconsin (50.8%) — exceeded that increase.

Three — Nevada (45.8%), Michigan (45.7%) and Pennsylvania (43.9%) — were just below the average increase.

Private equity giants, real estate investment trusts and other large institutional investors have amassed massive portfolios of single-family and rental homes the past decade. Some have argued that these investments have increased the cost of housing by limiting the supply.

Blackstone, the largest private-equity owner of apartments in the U.S. with more than 230,000 units, has spent billions in recent years purchasing real estate companies such as Tricon Residential, American Campus Communities and AIR Communities.