The National Association of REALTORS® is responding to yesterday’s call from the White House for a ban on further institutional investment in single-family homes. The association is encouraging an approach that would bring more homes to the market by incentivizing institutional owners to sell to owner-occupants.
The White House posted a statement on social media Wednesday from President Donald Trump saying, “For a very long time, buying and owning a home was considered the pinnacle of the American dream. It was the reward for working hard and doing the right thing.” Trump continued, “I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it. People live in homes, not corporations.”
In response, NAR Executive Vice President and Chief Advocacy Officer Shannon McGahn released the following statement: “The National Association of REALTORS® is encouraged that the administration and members of Congress are focused on addressing the nation’s housing affordability and supply crises. We share the goal of ensuring there are enough places for people to live and of expanding access to homeownership—especially for first-time buyers—and ensuring that housing policy strengthens communities rather than limiting opportunity.”
During NAR NXT, The REALTOR® Experience, McGahn stated, “REALTORS® adopted policy aimed at incentivizing large institutional owners of single-family rentals to transition homes back to owner-occupants while also creating new housing supply.”
Steady Buying Activity by Institutional Investors
Nationally, the share of residential purchases made by corporations, companies and LLCs has remained relatively stable over the past decade, averaging around the mid-teens, according to NAR.
NAR research shows that after falling during the early pandemic period, investor participation rose in 2021 and peaked in 2022 at 17.1%, before easing in 2023 and 2024, says Nadia Evangelou, senior economist with NAR. “The 2024 reading of 15.7% is broadly in line with pre-pandemic norms, suggesting that institutional activity has cooled from its peak but not surged beyond historical ranges.”
LLCs account for the majority of entity purchases, according to NAR’s analysis.
“When purchases by corporations and companies only are isolated, the national share falls to 3.2% in 2024, underscoring that large, institutional buyers represent a much smaller portion of total market activity than headline figures sometimes imply,” Evangelou says.
Investors Targeting Specific States
“Still, investor activity varies widely across states, reflecting differences in housing supply, price points, rental demand and tax or legal structures,” Evangelou says. “States such as Texas, Ohio, Utah, Tennessee, Indiana and Oklahoma show higher overall shares of entity purchases, largely driven by LLC activity rather than large corporate ownership. In contrast, the share attributable specifically to corporations and companies remains relatively low in most of these markets.”
An August 2025 report from the American Enterprise Institute’s Housing Center concurs with NAR’s position. In “Institutional Investors in the US Housing Market: Myths and Realities,” authors Sissi Lee, Tobias Peter and Edward Pinto said critics of institutional investment in single-family homes tend to “conflate large institutional investors with small- and medium-sized ones.” Their report showed that just 1% of home purchases in 2024 were by “large institutional investors,” which it defined as those owning 100 or more properties.
AEI said institutional investors “focus on certain markets and neighborhoods to achieve economies of scale. Yet even in metros that have received significant media attention for their more pronounced investor presence, such as Atlanta (4.2%), Dallas (2.6%) and Houston (2.2%), these investors do not dominate any single neighborhood.”
Collaborative Approach Is Key
According to NAR’s analysis, a small number of states stand out for higher concentrations of corporate and company purchases—notably Rhode Island, Connecticut, Georgia and New York, where the corporate share is meaningfully above the national average. “These markets tend to be more supply-constrained or investor-oriented, which can amplify the visibility of institutional activity,” Evangelou says.
McGahn says, “As the administration and Congress continue to develop proposals in this space, NAR looks forward to working collaboratively to share our research, policy expertise and practical solutions that boost supply, improve affordability and put more families on a sustainable path to homeownership.”
