Lawmakers in the House and Senate are resisting codifying into law President Donald Trump’s plan to ban on big investors buying single-family homes, according to a media report on Monday.
Trump has said he wants to ban institutional investors in housing, but experts are skeptical it would lower costs and believe it instead may raise housing costs.
The Trump proposal is meant to improve housing affordability, but large institutional investors represent only a small share of the market. Firms that own 100 or more single-family homes control roughly 2% of the nation’s single-family housing stock, according to John Burns Research and Consulting — raising questions about how much impact such a ban would have.
The Trump administration has been pressuring both chambers to include amendments to add the investor ban to major housing bills already working their way through Congress. The resistance aligns with traditional free-market proponents, Wall Street executives, and the home-builder industry.
The legislators have been working for months on housing packages in both the House and Senate. Adding investor-ban amendments threatens to upset the bipartisan momentum they’ve gained, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The House is working on some amendments, but the Senate is a different story, as Trump would have to convince Republicans to add an investor ban to the ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan package meant to increase affordable housing and reduce rental costs. Some Republicans do support the idea, but a significant number remain opposed, according to the Wall Street Journal.
