Trump signs executive order barring Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes
PMG’s affordability principal Dan Coakley talks to Fox News Digital about what it might take to make housing affordable again across the country.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday targeting Wall Street-backed investors who have been buying single-family homes, saying the trend has cost American families home ownership and turned neighborhoods into commercial assets rather than residential properties.
The order directs several federal agencies to limit federal support for such purchases and calls on the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to strengthen antitrust investigations of large institutional investors in the real estate market.
“Buying and owning a home has long been considered a cornerstone of the American dream and a way for families to invest and build lifelong wealth,” Trump wrote in the order. He said that dream is becoming more and more out of reach for many Americans, especially first-time home buyers.
“At the same time, a growing portion of single-family homes, often concentrated in certain communities, have been purchased by large Wall Street investors, shutting out families who want to buy homes,” the president wrote.
SCOTT BESSENT SAYS GREENLAND ‘CRITICAL’ TO TRUMP’S GOLDEN DOME PROTECTION PLAN
The White House shared an executive order signed by Trump on Tuesday removing Wall Street from neighborhoods saying ‘people live in homes, not companies.’ (Getty Images/Fox News)
Trump said individual buyers can’t compete with institutional money, saying, “Small, hard-working families can’t compete effectively for starter homes with Wall Street firms and their many resources.”
“Neighborhoods and communities once controlled by middle-class American families are now run by far-flung corporations,” he added. “People live in houses, not in companies.”
The executive order states that it is Trump administration policy that “large institutional investors should not purchase single-family homes that are likely to be purchased by families.”
Within 60 days, several federal agencies are ordered to issue guidance to prevent the federal government from supporting such purchases.
BELOW: PRESIDENT TRUMP APPEARS RIGHT TO TAKE GREENLAND
President Trump’s order is titled “Stopping Wall Street from competing with large domestic consumers.” (iStock / Getty Images Plus / Getty Images)
Trump also ordered the attorney general and the chairman of the FTC to review large purchases of single-family homes for potential anti-competitive effects.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is also directed to require landlords participating in federal housing assistance programs to disclose ownership and management information to detect “any involvement of large institutional investors.”
The order allows for “appropriate, minimally designed exceptions” in building communities for rentals that are “planned, permitted, financed, and constructed as rental communities,” a provision intended to preserve the development of legal employment.
The Trump administration’s executive order is pushing Wall Street away from Main Street for American consumers. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Trump also signaled that the action is intended as more than a temporary measure, directing senior White House staff to prepare legislation to turn the policy into law.
Trump framed the order as an economic and moral issue, writing that his administration “will take decisive action to stop Wall Street from treating America’s real estate as a commercial space and empower American families to own their homes.”
GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO
In a fact sheet accompanying the order, the White House said the move is intended to “put American families first in the housing market” and argued that institutional buyers are outnumbering first-time homebuyers in many communities.
The White House referred FOX Business to its fact sheet on the order.
