President Donald Trump said he’s “immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes,” promising to provide more details in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland later this month.
“People live in homes, not corporations,” Trump said in a social media post Wednesday that did not describe the steps he is taking other than to say he will be calling on Congress to codify the ban.
In the post, the president said he “will discuss this topic, including further Housing and Affordability proposals, and more, at my speech in Davos in two weeks” and blamed former President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats for high home prices.
Similar measures to stop Wall Street investors from snapping up homes to turn into rentals have stalled in Congress before, according to The New York Times, which reported institutional firms own only about 4% of the nation’s single-family home rental properties.
Reuters labeled the president’s proposal “a potential blow for private-equity landlords,” who critics say are driving up rent costs and adding to the housing affordability crisis. Since 2008’s recession, thousands of homes have been bought up by Wall Street institutions.
In Utah, lawmakers failed to advance a bill last year aimed at curbing what are often cash-only sales to investors by requiring buyers to live in the homes they purchase for at least a year. The bill was held in committee after being called the “wrong tool” to promote home ownership.
Realtor.com said Utah had the fourth highest percentage of homes purchased by investors of any state in 2024, with an 18% share of investor buyers. Only Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas were ranked higher in the mid-2025 analysis.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox weighed in on Wednesday’s announcement:
“@POTUS is right to stop corporate investors from driving up prices and locking Utahns out of homeownership. Congress should finish the job and keep big money out of our housing market,” Cox tweeted on X.
Trump’s latest announcement on housing affordability comes after he proposed 50-year home mortgages as a way to make buying a home easier. But that idea generated plenty of criticism, due to the much higher long-term costs of going beyond a traditional 30-year mortgage.