Institutional investors were exiting the U.S. housing market even before President Donald Trump said he wanted to bar them from purchasing single-family homes, according to a new study by Parcl Labs—but their exodus has been accelerating in the wake of the White House’s threat.
Why It Matters
The White House has floated the idea of barring investors who own 100-plus single-family homes from purchasing additional properties in the U.S. housing market.
Trump has portrayed the measure as a way to improve affordability and put homeownership within the reach of millions of hard-working Americans, especially younger people. “People live in homes, not corporations,” the president said in January.
But housing experts have argued that it may have only a modest impact—if any at all.
“Large corporate ownership is a red herring in the broader supply debate: most single-family rentals are owned by small landlords, and many of the markets where institutional investors have been most active are also places where inventory has already been rising and price growth has cooled over the past two years,” Jake Krimmel, a senior economist at Realtor.com, previously told Newsweek.
What To Know
Institutional investors bought a record share of 26 percent of low-priced homes in the U.S. in the fourth quarter of 2023, a year when affordability was particularly bad for many Americans. These purchases further decreased inventory levels at a time when the supply of homes across the country, especially affordable ones, was already low.
Since then, the phenomenon of Wall Street investors snatching up homes across the country has subsided significantly, with investors instead trying to get out of the market.
Researchers at Parcl Labs, a company that provides real-time real estate data and analytics, found that investors’ share of listings exceeds their share of ownership in every major market in the nation.
In no other metropolitan area was this more evident than in Dallas, where investors own 9.2 percent of housing stock but account for 22.8 percent of listings. Twelve other markets had a listing-to-ownership ratio above 1.5x, including Philadelphia (2.36x) and Houston (2.10x).
These findings were based on the analysis of data from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, Phoenix, Boston, San Francisco, Detroit, Seattle, Minneapolis, San Diego, Denver, St. Louis and Washington, D.C.—as well as Riverside, California, and Tampa, Florida.
In Atlanta, investors now sell almost two homes for every one they buy, the study found.
Crucially, this trend of exiting investors predates the Trump administration’s threat to bar Wall Street buyers from purchasing single-family homes in the U.S. housing market.
According to Parcl Labs, investors’ listing share has surged since late 2024, though net selling is now accelerating—especially in former pandemic darlings where institutional portfolios are concentrated.
In many of these markets, investors are also proving “highly motivated” to sell, which means they are willing to cut prices to entice buyers.
Dallas, Atlanta, Houston and Tampa—markets that boomed during the pandemic homebuying frenzy and have since seen a significant rise in inventory—showed “the highest listing skew, the deepest purchase-to-sale declines, and the most urgently priced inventory,” Parcl Labs said.
The result of a significant exodus of investors, researchers said, could be to move down local home prices for all sellers, not just institutional ones.
What People Are Saying
Parcl Labs researchers wrote: “Across 13 of the top 20 U.S. metros, investors are listing at more than 1.5 times their ownership share. Purchase activity has been declining since rates rose in 2022.
“The White House proposal targets a behavior the market has been pulling back on its own for years. Therefore, the policy may accelerate what’s already in motion.”
What Happens Next
The White House is following through on Trump’s threat to ban institutional investors from buying U.S. single-family homes.
A memo outlining the plan to implement the proposal has been sent to House and Senate committee leaders, The Wall Street Journal reported last month, and the president reiterated his intention to introduce the measure during the State of the Union address.
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