Donald Trump has thrown his weight behind a proposal to ban large institutional investors from buying single-family homes in the United States, arguing that corporate ownership is pricing ordinary Americans out of the housing market.
In a social media post on Wednesday, the US president said he would ask Congress to “codify” a ban on corporate purchases of family homes and confirmed he would raise the issue at the upcoming World Economic Forum in Davos later this month.
The intervention revives a long-running debate in US housing policy over the role of Wall Street in residential property. Since the 2008 financial crisis, private equity firms and large landlords have bought tens of thousands of homes, particularly in fast-growing Sun Belt cities, reshaping local housing markets and rental dynamics.
“That American Dream is increasingly out of reach for far too many people, especially younger Americans,” Trump wrote. “People live in homes, not corporations.”
Markets reacted swiftly. Shares in Blackstone, one of the largest institutional buyers of US housing, fell more than 5 per cent following Trump’s comments, while other property-related stocks also declined. Invitation Homes, a major single-family rental operator, dropped 6 per cent, while building supplier Builders FirstSource also slid.
The White House declined to provide further detail on how the proposal would work in practice, including how “large” investors would be defined or whether existing corporate-owned homes would be exempt. Any such ban would almost certainly require congressional approval.
The announcement comes as Trump faces mounting voter concern over the cost of living, with housing affordability now one of the most politically sensitive economic issues in the US. Both Democrats and Republicans have criticised the growing influence of institutional landlords, though previous legislative efforts have stalled.
“Senate Democrats tried to do this last year. Republicans blocked it,” said Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer. On Wednesday, Ohio Republican senator Bernie Moreno said he would introduce legislation to support Trump’s proposal.
Housing advocates cautiously welcomed the move. Sam Garin, a spokesperson for the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, said: “We eagerly await the details of what this policy will actually entail. But policymakers shouldn’t stop there.”
However, economists and housing analysts are divided on whether such a ban would materially lower house prices. Laurie Goodman, a fellow at the Urban Institute, said the impact would depend heavily on how institutional investors are defined. While Blackstone says institutions own just 0.5 per cent of all US single-family homes, Goodman’s research suggests larger investors control closer to 4 per cent of the market.
She added that purchases by institutional investors have already slowed in recent years due to high interest rates and elevated house prices, raising questions about how much further a ban would shift demand.
Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin, warned that restricting large investors may simply redirect purchases to smaller landlords rather than first-time buyers. “If big investors are blocked, they’re likely to be replaced by mid-sized or smaller investors, not families,” she said.
For now, Trump’s proposal has injected fresh political momentum into a housing debate that shows no sign of easing — even if the economic impact remains uncertain.
