US President Donald Trump speaks at the White House Press Conference Room in Washington, DC, USA on January 20, 2026.
Nathan Posner | Anadolu | Getty Images
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday aimed at preventing competition between Wall Street investors and individual home buyers, according to the White House.
“To preserve the supply of single-family homes for American families and expand access to homeownership, it is the policy of the Administration that large institutional investors should not purchase single-family homes that families can buy,” President Trump said in the executive order.
President Trump, under pressure to address voters’ affordability concerns ahead of this year’s congressional elections, has recently pushed several major policy proposals aimed at promoting homeownership and lowering the cost of living.
President Trump on Tuesday directed his administration to issue guidance within 60 days to impose limits on sales of single-family homes, according to an order released by the White House.
The order also calls for additional action, including directing the Secretary of the Treasury to review and consider revisions to rules and guidance related to the acquisition or holding of single-family homes by large institutional investors.
The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission “shall review significant acquisitions, including a series of acquisitions of single-family homes, by large institutional investors in the regional single-family housing market for anticompetitive effects and, where appropriate, prioritize antitrust enforcement against coordinated vacancy and pricing strategies by large institutional investors in the regional single-family home rental market,” the order states.
Wall Street lenders such as Blackstone, American Homes 4 Rent and Progress Residential have purchased thousands of single-family homes since the 2008 financial crisis triggered a wave of foreclosures.
According to a 2024 study by the Board of Audit, by June 2022, institutional investors owned about 450,000 units, or about 3% of the nation’s single-family rental homes.
President Trump’s move to target Wall Street landlords aligns him with Democrats, who have long criticized corporate home buying for contributing to soaring home prices and pushed unsuccessful legislation to crack down on the trend.
