President Donald Trump announced plans to ban large institutional investors from buying single-family homes earlier this week, arguing the move would ease competition for families and improve housing affordability.
The proposal has reignited a long-running debate over the role Wall Street-backed landlords play in the housing market — and whether restricting them would meaningfully lower home prices or simply generate political momentum around a deeply complex issue.
Steve Murray, founder of RTC Consulting, cited data consistently showing that large institutions account for only a small fraction of investor-owned housing, despite their outsized visibility.
“This is a lot of saber rattling,” Murray told HousingWire. “It’s also going to depend on who’s doing the measuring, and I’ve done a lot of research on this in years past. It hasn’t changed much. There are north of 16 million single-family homes, condos or co-ops that are owned by investors, the smaller investors. The institutions own well less than a million.
“So, 5% to 6% of investor-owned homes in the U.S. are owned by large institutions. It’s nonsense that if they stop buying it will have any material effect on the housing market.”
Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he was “immediately taking steps” to stop large institutions from buying more single-family homes and would call on Congress to codify the policy, declaring that “people live in homes, not corporations.”
How large investors fit into the housing market
Holly Mabery, chief brokerage officer at eXp Realty, said her agents see a similar small market share of large investors, although there is wide variation by region.
“What’s important to note is it absolutely varies by market,” she said. “It always has. And so, when you look nationally, less than 3% of the investment properties are owned by large corporations. With the average investment, 90% or so, are owned by my parents and your parents. It’s small, mom-and-pop, individual owners who may hold it in an LLC.”
Still, Mabery acknowledged that some metro areas are far more concentrated with institutional ownership — particularly in the Southeast.
“Now, when you get into markets like Atlanta, yes, that’s skewed a little bit more, where 25% of all investment properties are owned by a real estate trust or the large firms,” she said. “Then, you get into other larger markets like Houston, Orlando, even Charlotte, North Carolina. Those have been a little bit skewed, but Atlanta is probably the highest at 25% right now.”
A historical view
Anthony Lamacchia — founder and CEO of Lamacchia Companies — said the backlash against institutional investors must be understood in historical context.
In a social media post, Lamacchia wrote: “I distinctly remember back to around the last market crash, 2010. We had an overabundance of inventory, more than 4 million homes for sale in the United States. During that time, these institutional investors were welcome.”
Lamacchia said those firms played a critical role in stabilizing the market after the foreclosure crisis by absorbing excess inventory, particularly in hard-hit regions.
“They were applauded for getting into the market and buying up houses, particularly across the southern part of the United States, to decrease inventory,” he said. “And that was really something big that contributed to putting an end to the foreclosure crisis in the excess of excessively high inventories.”
Fifteen years later, he said, the market has flipped — from oversupply to persistent shortage — changing how those same investors are perceived.
“Now, a lot of people are getting tired of these institutional investors,” Lamacchia said. “It’s because they’re keeping inventory low, and they’ve gotten to the point that they own so much inventory in certain markets that they are actually able to control inventory levels and make sure that it doesn’t go too high, to knock pricing down.”
Affordability pressures beyond investors
eXp’s Mabery says investor activity is only one factor shaping affordability — and not necessarily the dominant one.
“I think it’s absolutely a piece,” she said. “I don’t know that it’s as big as many would make it out to be, especially when I look at new home development and new construction. You’re looking at the first $100,000 as basically impact fees, zoning permits and so on. That cost on top of materials and labor already sets you back as a potential buyer to build a home.”
She added that affordability must be viewed through the lens of household budgets, not just purchase prices.
“It’s not just the cost of obtaining the property,” Mabery said. “It’s also what people can afford with the cost of things people are carrying. Health care is a tremendous issue and then you have to consider student loan debt.”
Those pressures, she said, have compounded across the economy.
“I think it’s easy to say housing is too expensive, but I think the cost of a family of four operating in this world has gotten substantially more expensive,” said Mabery. “Whether it’s childcare, healthcare, school loan debt or the cost of groceries. All of that is absolutely putting the squeeze on what people determine is affordable for them and their lifestyle.”
What Trump’s move may actually accomplish
Lamacchia said he views the announcement as a familiar Trump tactic, but questioned how policymakers could define and enforce such a ban without unintended consequences.
“How do they quantify that?” he said. “How do they make that clear without punishing anyone that shouldn’t be. They’re probably going to create incentives for some of these investors to sell.”
That approach aligns with proposals already circulating in the industry.
Murray has advocated a temporary federal capital gains tax waiver to encourage landlords to sell to owner-occupants.
“The absolute thing that would work is to go to owners, all of them,” he said. “It doesn’t matter whether they’re mom and pop, like me, I own two, or somebody who owns 50 or 100. They should, with certain conditions, say to those owners, ‘If you sell that unit to a first-time homebuyer — or any buyer — in the next 12 months to be an owner occupant, we will waive the federal capital gains taxes that you may owe on that property.’”
Mabery said large brokerages also have a responsibility to engage constructively in regulation and legislation discussions.
“It’s really important to have a seat at the table to bring actual data forward,” she said. “I think it’s easy for real estate agents, for real estate brokerages, to end up being a scapegoat. We need to proactively come to the table and help put forward good policy that makes sense.”
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