Trump signs order to restrict Wall Street firms from buying single-family homes
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
US President Donald Trump has recently pushed a number of major policy proposals aimed at boosting home ownership and reining in living costs.
PHOTO: REUTERS
WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan 20 aiming to stop Wall Street investors from competing with individual home buyers, the White House said.
“To preserve the supply of single-family homes for American families and increase the paths to home ownership, it is the policy of my Administration that large institutional investors should not buy single-family homes that could otherwise be purchased by families,” Mr Trump said in his order.
Mr Trump, under pressure to address voter affordability concerns ahead of congressional elections in 2026, has recently pushed a number of major policy proposals aimed at boosting home ownership and reining in living costs.
Earlier in January, Mr Trump ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy US$200 billion (S$256.75 billion) in mortgage bonds to bring down housing costs.
Mr Trump’s order on Jan 20 directs his administration to promote home sales to individual buyers, restrict federal programmes from facilitating sales of single-family homes to Wall Street investors and review acquisitions by large investors.
The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission will “review acquisitions by large investors for anti-competitive practices and prioritise enforcement against certain of those practices by institutional investors in the single-family home rental market”, according to a fact sheet released by the White House.
The order instructs federal agencies to allow individuals and other non-institutional investors to buy foreclosed properties ahead of investors.
The White House will also prepare legislative recommendations to codify policies to prevent large institutional investors from acquiring single-family homes.
Wall Street institutions such as Blackstone, American Homes 4 Rent and Progress Residential have bought thousands of single-family homes since the financial crisis of 2008 led to a wave of home foreclosures.
By June 2022, institutional investors owned around 450,000 homes, or about 3 per cent, of all single-family rental homes nationally, according to a 2024 study by the Government Accountability Office.
A move by Mr Trump to target Wall Street landlords would align him with Democrats, who for years have criticised corporate homebuying, claiming it has helped stoke housing costs, and have unsuccessfully pushed Bills to crack down on the trend. REUTERS
