A whopping 73% of Americans blame real estate investors for the nation's lack of affordable housing, according to a Jan. 20 survey from Clever Real Estate.
Executive Order (EO) Signed to Rein In Big Investors.
The level of discontent over large institutional investors snatching homes from the clutches of ordinary homebuyers has been obvious for a while. And it's no surprise that President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order (EO) — coincidentally also on Jan. 20 — to curb such investments.
"President Trump is working to make homeownership affordable again after years of Wall Street crowding out first-time buyers and young families," says the White House in a release that also describes the order.
Time reports, "The order lays out several broad steps for the Administration to take in the coming weeks to review relevant policies and impose restrictions." However, the Time article goes on to add that there's uncertainty around how the order may be implemented, as well as what will constitute a "large institutional investor" or "single-family home."
How Much Difference Will the EO Make?
"While institutional investors own roughly 2% of the single-family rental housing stock across the U.S., they own a much greater share of homes in certain markets, particularly in the southeast. GAO [the Government Accountability Office] estimates that institutional investors own 25% of Atlanta, GA’s single-family rental housing market, 21% of Jacksonville, FL’s, 18% of Charlotte, NC’s, and 15% of Tampa, FL’s single-family rental market," says the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
So, this is primarily a localized issue that affects only a small portion of the country. However, it's one that's growing.
"Real estate investors made up one-third of buyers for single-family residential properties in the second quarter of 2025. That’s the highest percent in the last five years, according to an analysis from BatchData," said Yahoo! Finance last month.
But those numbers don't tell the whole story. That quarter was a slow one for home sales, and, as a raw number rather than a percentage, the number of homes investors bought was actually lower: 16,000 fewer than a year earlier, according to Yahoo!, still citing BatchData.
Limitations of the EO
And there's more. Small investors (those who own fewer than 11 properties) account for 91% of all investor-owned homes, according to Yahoo! Finance. They won't be affected at all by the EO.
New developments of build-to-rent single-family homes are also not affected by the EO, despite being an area of growing activity for big investors.
"Trump’s executive order on Tuesday includes an exemption for 'build-to-rent' communities: neighborhoods of newly constructed single-family homes produced specifically to be rented out," says The Wall Street Journal. "Developers argue that investors of build-to-rent properties don’t compete with individual home buyers and instead help people live in pricier neighborhoods where they cannot afford to own."
Meanwhile, as mentioned, the EO is only a preparatory step toward regulation. It instructs various government bodies to suggest ways to rein in the purchase of single-family homes by large institutional investors to help write a Congressional bill. The timescale for implementation is unknown.
Finally, some question the whole idea that these big investors meaningfully affect home prices. Time quotes Marc Norman, the associate dean of the Schack Institute of Real Estate at New York University. He argues that the EO is " ... based on a misconception. Housing prices are going up because of supply constraints … supply and demand is always going to be the driver.”
And that's an argument with which regular readers will be familiar.
