The top Democrat on the House’s housing subcommittee expressed skepticism about the Trump administration’s push to ban institutional investors, such as Blackstone, from purchasing single-family homes.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), the ranking member of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, spoke with the Washington Examiner on Tuesday during an interview focused on housing policy and recent bipartisan housing legislation designed to boost housing supply and ease the affordability crisis that has plagued the nation.
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“I don’t know whether or not we should get into telling who can buy single-family or multi-family housing, you know?” Cleaver said. “I mean, I probably sound like a Republican, but … I don’t want to get into trying to dictate who can buy what in the United States.”
Last week, President Donald Trump announced that his administration will release a plan to ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes. Cleaver, a longtime legislator involved in housing on Capitol Hill, said he appreciated that the White House is examining solutions to problems with housing affordability, but didn’t think such a policy change would have a significant effect.
“The problem of the lack of sufficient, affordable, and decent housing is not necessarily being impacted by corporate entities,” Cleaver said.
Cleaver pointed out that corporations currently own a very low share of the country’s housing stock. Institutional investors, those who own 100 or more homes, have purchased less than 2% of all homes.
“So that’s not a crisis,” the congressman added.
Cleaver said that the heart of the problem with housing in the country isn’t institutional investors, but rather the lack of supply.
Still, Cleaver said that, despite disagreement about the policy proposal itself, he was encouraged to see that the president and the White House are mulling ideas in the housing and housing affordability space.
“I’m glad that the president said that, because now I have at least some hope that the interest of the White House is similar to the interests of those of us who would like to see an expansion of available, decent, affordable housing,” Cleaver said.
Proponents of banning firms like Blackstone from buying single-family homes, many of whom are on the Left and populist Right, argue that those investors are crowding out the market for homebuyers. Others in the housing space, though, say that is not the case and that the policy could backfire by making housing more expensive for some.
The idea of preventing institutional investors from entering the single-family housing market has been more popular among Democrats than Republicans. For instance, the End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act, which was cosponsored by a number of House Democrats, would have imposed an excise tax on hedge funds that own a number of single-family homes over a specified amount.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told the Washington Examiner that he wants to learn more about the details of the White House proposal.
“Anything that Trump puts out, I have to double-check and triple-check because he and I don’t share the same values,” he said. “On one hand, it sounds like something that I might be supportive of, but I’m always looking for the hook or the catch with him.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told the Washington Examiner that the Trump proposal “kind of feels like a stunt” because there hasn’t yet been a legislative plan that has been released.
“Also, beyond institutional investors, we don’t have enough homes, and if we don’t solve for the many problems that are preventing us from expanding our housing supply, then we’re not lowering the price of homes for anybody,” she said.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is one Democrat who seemed intrigued by Trump’s latest push.
“I think, overall, that’s a positive development,” Fetterman told the Washington Examiner last week. “It seems to me like quite a positive thing, because obviously we’re willing to find all the different kinds of ways to address the housing situation.”
Details of the White House plan are still forthcoming. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last week the administration hasn’t settled on the “exact contours” of the move, but he indicated there would be no plans to force institutional investors into retroactive sales.
“The idea here is bygones are bygones,” Bessent said. “We’re not going to have a forced sale here.”
He also indicated that the administration is still toying with the thresholds involved in the plan.