The proposal targets investors that analysts say control a modest slice of the market, leaving untouched the structural factors economists most commonly identify as driving unaffordability: a national shortage of new construction and home prices that have climbed faster than incomes.
President Donald Trump called on Congress Wednesday to ban large institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes, saying the move would make homeownership more accessible for younger families. Trump framed the proposal as part of a broader affordability push ahead of November midterm elections, promising to outline more detailed housing plans at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in two weeks.
“People live in homes, not corporations,” Trump said in a social media post, in which he called on Congress to codify the ban into law.
The proposal targets a segment of the market that research suggests plays a limited role in driving unaffordability. Institutional investors — defined by an August 2025 analysis from the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank in Washington, as entities owning 100 or more properties — account for just 1% of total single-family housing stock nationally.
Their share is higher in some Sun Belt markets, reaching 4.2% in Atlanta, 2.6% in Dallas and 2.2% in Houston, according to the same analysis. The researchers found these investors are more concentrated in lower- and middle-income communities but do not tend to dominate neighborhoods even where their presence is most pronounced.
The larger drivers of the affordability crunch remain a shortage of new construction and home prices that have outpaced wages. The national median home sale price stood at $410,800 as of early January, according to federal data, while the 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 6.15%, keeping monthly payments elevated for prospective buyers. Goldman Sachs estimated in October that 3 million to 4 million additional homes beyond normal annual construction levels would need to be built to relieve cost pressures.
Trump acknowledged last month the bind that aggressive new construction would create for existing homeowners. “I don’t want to knock those numbers down because I want them to continue to have a big value for their house,” he said. “At the same time, I want to make it possible for young people out there and other people to buy housing. In a way, they’re at conflict.”
The announcement is part of a broader housing agenda Trump outlined in a prime-time address last month, when he pledged to roll out “some of the most aggressive housing reform plans in American history” in 2026. He has previously floated extending the standard 30-year mortgage to 50 years to lower monthly payments, a proposal critics say would reduce borrowers’ capacity to build home equity over time.
Congress has its own housing measures in play. The Senate in October passed a bipartisan bill sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., that would create incentives for local governments to streamline zoning regulations to increase the supply of homes. The measure has stalled in the Republican-controlled House.
Warren said Wednesday that Trump’s focus on institutional investors obscures a more immediate threat. The senator told reporters that the Trump administration risked pushing housing prices higher by allowing real estate companies Compass and Anywhere to merge. “He’s feeling the heat because the American people want to see us lower the cost of housing and it is Democrats who are committed to getting that done,” Warren said.