President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order directing federal agencies to curb large institutional investors from buying single-family homes that could otherwise be purchased by owner-occupants.
The White House is pitching the move as a way to ease pressure on first-time buyers and keep starter homes available for families rather than corporate landlords.
In the order, Trump says "recent high inflation and interest rates" put homeownership "increasingly out of reach," and he argues Wall Street investors have been "crowding out families" competing for single-family houses.
The directive, titled "Stopping Wall Street from Competing with Main Street Homebuyers," was published by the White House on Tuesday alongside a fact sheet describing the policy goal as ensuring "large institutional investors do not buy single-family homes that could otherwise be purchased by families."
The order directs the Treasury secretary to develop definitions for "large institutional investor" and "single-family home" within 30 days, a step that will determine how broadly the restrictions can be applied.
Within 60 days, USDA, HUD, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the General Services Administration, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency are instructed to issue guidance to stop agencies and government-sponsored enterprises to the maximum extent permitted by law, from facilitating institutional purchases through approvals, insurance, guarantees, securitization, or other support.
The same guidance is supposed to discourage federal asset sales that would transfer single-family homes to large investors and to promote sales to owner-occupants through first-look policies, disclosure requirements, and anti-circumvention provisions.
The order also carves out "narrowly tailored exceptions," including for build-to-rent communities that are planned, permitted, financed, and constructed specifically as rental developments.
Trump's directive pulls in antitrust enforcers by instructing the attorney general and the Federal Trade Commission chair to review substantial acquisitions, including series of acquisitions, in local single-family markets for anticompetitive effects.
It also calls for prioritizing enforcement, as appropriate, against alleged "coordinated vacancy and pricing strategies" by large institutional investors in local single-family rental markets.
HUD is further directed to require owners and managing agents of single-family rentals participating in federal housing assistance programs to disclose direct or indirect owners, managers, or affiliates, including changes in control, to identify institutional involvement.
The White House is elevating housing affordability as an early-term priority as mortgage-rate moves continue to influence buyer demand and market activity.
Freddie Mac said in mid-January that average mortgage rates had recently dropped to their lowest level in more than three years and noted that purchase applications and refinancing activity had increased, underscoring how sensitive many households remain to borrowing costs.
Separately, industry research has kept investor activity in the political spotlight, with trade coverage citing BatchData's "Investor Pulse" report saying investors accounted for roughly a third of single-family purchases in the third quarter of 2025, the highest share in five years, even as the number of investor transactions fell from a year earlier.
The order also directs the deputy chief of staff for legislative, political, and public affairs to prepare recommendations to codify the policy so the restrictions can be locked in through legislation.
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