Trump order targets Wall Street buyers of single-family homes

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order directing his administration to curb large institutional investors’ purchases of single-family homes, escalating a policy push that could affect real estate strategies across public markets and private funds.

The order, issued Tuesday, sets out a federal policy that “large institutional investors should not buy single-family homes that could otherwise be purchased by families” as the White House looks to address housing affordability pressures ahead of congressional elections this year.

Making good on a promise he made in the final days of 2025, Trump framed the move as a way to stop big investors from “crowding out” would-be owner-occupiers.

“Hardworking young families cannot effectively compete for starter homes with Wall Street firms and their vast resources,” the order says, adding that “people live in homes, not corporations.”

“My Administration will take decisive action to stop Wall Street from treating America’s neighborhoods like a trading floor and empower American families to own their homes,” it adds.

For now, the order leaves key details to regulators. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has 30 days to define what counts as a “large institutional investor” and a “single-family home” for the purposes of the policy.

Other agencies, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, must issue guidance within 60 days to restrict sales of federally connected single-family homes to such investors and to prioritize individual owner-occupants.

Those agencies are directed to avoid backing loans, securitizations, or other transactions that help large investors acquire homes that might otherwise go to individual buyers. They are also told not to dispose of federally owned homes to institutional buyers, with narrow exceptions for build-to-rent communities that are planned and financed as rental neighborhoods.

Beyond housing programs, the order pushes financial and competition regulators to scrutinize Wall Street’s footprint in single-family rentals. Treasury is asked to review rules that relate to institutional ownership of single-family homes and consider revisions.

The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission are instructed to review “substantial acquisitions” of such homes in local markets for anti-competitive effects and to prioritize enforcement of antitrust laws where large landlords may be coordinating on vacancies or pricing.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development must also build a registry of single-family rental owners that participate in federal housing assistance programs, including information on direct and indirect owners and affiliates, to flag any involvement by large institutional players.

The policy push comes even as institutional investors still own a relatively small slice of the single-family rental market. While Blackstone and other Wall Street institutions have snapped up such properties by the thousands since the 2008 financial crisis, a report by CNBC noted that those large players held around 450,000 homes as of June 2022, or about 3% of all single-family rentals nationwide, according to a 2024 Government Accountability Office study.

On Capitol Hill, Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio has said he plans to introduce legislation to codify Trump’s ban on institutional buyers, though that effort remains at an early stage. “We are in the discovery phase,” Moreno told the Wall Street Journal. “I would never want to go ahead of the president.”

Jina Yoon, chief alternative investment strategist at LPL, noted that even if the proposal were to become law, the impact would be less straightforward than what's been suggested.

"According to the St. Louis Federal Reserve, a record-high 30% of single-family home purchases in the first half of 2025 were made by investors," Yoon wrote in a commentary. "However, the data also shows close to 80% of those purchases were made by mom-and-pop investors, not large institutions."

The fact that the proposal only covers existing houses, not new construction, also leaves room for institutional investors to shift capital toward build-to-rent projects. The upshot, Yoon argued, would be more rental community development owned and managed by institutional money.

"There are many more structural factors that drive home prices and affordability issues than the share of homes owned by institutional investors, such as chronic supply shortages, zoning constraints, income, and mortgage costs," Yoon said. "While we wait for further details, publicly traded REITs and real estate investment firms could experience increased volatility, reflecting uncertainties and investors' concerns."

Trump’s housing agenda extends beyond curbing Wall Street landlords. He has proposed allowing Americans to tap 401(k) accounts for home down payments without penalty and has pushed for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage-finance companies, to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds as part of a broader attempt to lower borrowing costs.