President Donald Trump has announced that he will seek to ban institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes in an attempt to improve housing affordability ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
“People live in homes, not businesses,” Trump said in a social media post Wednesday announcing the initiative. He also stated that he will detail the plan at the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, later this month.
The news sent shares of homebuilders including Toll Brothers, Invitation Homes, KB Home and PulteGroup falling. Shares of Blackstone — one of the largest home investors in the US — fell nearly 10%, but later recovered part of the losses.
Take advantage of the stock market rise!
The proposal comes after Trump allies have warned that the lack of affordable housing has become a political problem for the Republican Party, ahead of the November elections. Trump called on Republican deputies to avoid losing control of the House, saying that could lead to his impeachment.
The White House’s concern has reason: only 36% of Americans approve of the Trump administration, according to a Gallup poll released in December, slightly above his worst rating before the end of his first term, in January 2021. Almost half of adults rate the current economic situation as “bad”.
Shortly after Trump’s announcement, Republican Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio said he will introduce a bill to turn the proposal into law.
Continues after advertising
Republican Rep. Bryan Steil, who sits on the House Financial Services Committee, said he supports the attention to housing policy and wants to know more details about the president’s plan.
“A lot of people can’t afford the house they could have bought a generation ago,” Steil said in an interview with Bloomberg. He highlighted that the two main points for legislators are “reducing inflation to lower interest rates and increasing the supply of housing, mainly by eliminating bureaucracy.”
It is not yet clear what the impact of such a ban would be on house prices.
Housing prices have soared in recent years due to a lack of supply, which worsened after the global financial crisis. The pandemic has worsened the problem: through August, the S&P Case-Shiller index, which measures home prices in 20 US cities, had risen 68% since January 2020.
Important point
Investors of all sizes purchased about 30% of single-family homes as of early 2025. But small investors account for more than 90% of the market, while large institutional investors have just 2% of rental homes.
Blaming companies for the housing crisis has become a common discourse in politics, among both Democrats and Republicans in 2024. But sector economists say that taking investors out of the market could be bad, as they are putting money into a complicated market.
Continues after advertising
In 2021, Blackstone purchased Home Partners of America for $6 billion, adding 17,000 rental homes. More recently, it purchased Toronto-based Tricon Residential for US$3.5 billion, with over 38,000 homes for rent in the US. Steve Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone, has been a strong political supporter of Trump for years.
Institutional investors began buying repossessed homes en masse after the 2008 crisis, when companies like Blackstone, Pretium and Starwood Capital acquired properties at very low prices. With stricter lending rules, large investors gained an advantage over small investors, and those who lost their homes had to rent, increasing the demand for rental homes. Purchases grew even more after the pandemic, with house prices soaring and interest rates low.
© 2026 Bloomberg L.P.
Continues after advertising
