“Commercial real estate firm CBRE reported in an October 2024 research brief that single-family rental inventory had declined by 1.7 million units since 2016. Investors who own more than 100 homes are also responsible for some 3 or 4 percent of single-family home purchases each year.
The vast majority of homes are owned, bought, and sold by either individual owner-occupiers or small mom-and-pop investors who own fewer than 10 homes.
This is the windmill that Trump and lawmakers of both parties are tilting at.
And even though large investors are not major purchasers of single-family homes, they do provide benefits that would be lost if federal regulation excluded them from the single-family rental market.
A 2022 study by Neroli Austin of the University of Michigan found that institutional investment in real estate increases neighborhood diversity by opening up more affordable rental housing options. That study did find that these investors were raising home prices overall.
Banning institutional investors from the single-family market would reduce the accessibility they provide to renters who can’t qualify for mortgages.”