President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday seeking to limit large Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes, as part of his push to make essentials more affordable for Americans.
The order details a multi-pronged plan targeting large investors. It includes measures that would restrict institutional investors from buying homes that individuals could purchase, combat speculation in the single-family housing market, and conduct antitrust reviews of acquisitions.
The order comes with an important exception: build-to-rent properties that were designed and constructed as rental communities. The order also says there may be other “narrowly tailored exceptions.”
Per the order, the Treasury Department has a month to develop definitions of “large institutional investors” and “single-family homes.” Relevant federal agencies have 60 days to look at ways to prohibit the buying of single-family homes by large entities.
“Neighborhoods and communities once controlled by middle-class American families are now run by faraway corporate interests. People live in homes, not corporations,” Trump said in the order.
Trump first proposed the order in a Truth Social post earlier this month. “For a very long time, buying and owning a home was considered the pinnacle of the American Dream,” Trump wrote. “That American dream is increasingly out of reach for far too many people, especially younger Americans.”
A day later, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that Trump’s proposal would not force large entities to sell their current holdings.
“These big institutions buy housing, then rent them out, and they’re able to depreciate it. They hide their earnings, pay lower taxes,” he said.
“The idea here is bygones are bygones,” Bessent added. “We’re not going to have a forced sale here.”
After Trump’s Truth Social post earlier this month, shares of asset manager Blackstone fell 5.6%. Blackstone, which manages $1 trillion in assets, oversees one of the largest rental housing portfolios in the US, with several hundred thousand single-family homes and apartments. Other stocks similarly fell.
Critics say firms like New York-based Blackstone put pressure on the housing market, reducing the availability of homes and driving prices up.
The institutional players, meanwhile, say lack of housing supply — not big-business ownership — is pushing prices up.
Among Trump’s efforts to address affordability concerns, the president also called for a one-year cap of 10% on credit card interest rates, arguing that consumers are being “ripped off” by rates that he said can be as high as 20% or 30%. Banks and business leaders said that the rule would ultimately curtail the availability of credit for borrowers who rely on it.
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