Let's Explore Trump's 'Large Institutional Investors' Home Ban Idea…

Defy the Institutionals

I have for YEARS described DC as the Butcher of America. Our alleged representatives have LONG been carving up the country - and selling it by the pound to the globalist money men and women.

Very few things better quantify and qualify this assessment than what DC has allowed to be done to the US housing market.

For YEARS hedge funds and their ilk (and foreign individual monied buyers) have been buying large swaths of the available US real estate. And included therein is their mass-pollution of the housing market.

The US commercial real estate market is an overvalued catastrophe waiting to happen. So we will let these Mega Investors take their lumps there - along with all the rest of US. (Although I’m sure they’ll end up with a government bailout of some major sort.)

And it is not the commercial real estate market to which on his Truth Social President Donald Trump referred:

“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.”

I know Congress is perpetually inert on all things good and positive. But I’d like for the President to wait for them to act upon this very good idea. Because I’d like to at least occasionally adhere to the Constitutional order of legislative succession.

There is at least one bill already filed in both the House and Senate: “The End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act.” Let’s begin somewhere around there - and make whatever bill Congress passes as good as it is possible to have them make it.

The housing market has for most Americans been the bedrock of individual and family wealth building. In case you were wondering:

Inflation of the US dollar has constituted about half of the increase in average home value since 1971. The dollar has 7.69 times less purchasing power (87%). But the average home price is up between 12.8 times and 16 times.

So while inflation has been extraordinarily awful? Homes have still been a great grower of value and wealth.

And these Mega Investors have increasingly been pricing individuals and families out of the housing market.

Wall Street Has Spent Billions Buying Homes:

“(H)omeowner associations for years have sought to stop investors from buying and renting out houses in their neighborhoods….

“(I)nvestors that have scooped up hundreds of thousands of houses to rent out (and) are contributing to the dearth of homes for sale and driving up home prices….

“Investors of all sizes spent billions of dollars buying homes during the pandemic. At the 2022 peak, they bought more than one in every four single-family homes sold….”

The Mega Investors, of course, know exactly what they are doing:

“Hedge funds and private equity firms are actively buying homes, especially in high-growth areas and lower-priced markets where rental yields are strongest.

“Their presence has grown steadily over the last decade, with nearly 19% of all U.S. homes sold in Q1 2024 going to investors. In some markets, that number is even higher.

“For many homebuyers, this has created tougher competition, especially when going up against wall street hedge funds with all-cash offers and fast timelines.”

And these all-cash offers - are almost always well above the asking prices. Further boxing out families look to enter the homeowners’ market.

Do I actually expect much in the way of remedy to come from Institutional DC? I do not.

Mega Investors do a lot of their investing - in DC. Buying up lobbyists and “think” tanks to block any blockage of their home market evisceration.

An OpenSecrets search for “hedge funds” in 2023-2024 yields a top ten that combined spent $274,020,092 in DC.

Hedge fund Citadel LLC alone spent $108,549,658. Are they involved in inflating the housing crisis? You bet they are.

Here they are on their own website - bragging about it:

“Citadel LLC, a prominent hedge fund, is actively investing in starter homes, particularly in high-growth areas and lower-priced markets where rental yields are strongest….

“Citadel’s investment strategy includes buying entire neighborhoods intended for rent instead of sale, targeting fast-growing cities such as Atlanta, Charlotte, and Phoenix, where starter homes are in high demand.”

Emphasis ours. Because…come on.

Here’s where it really gets sardonically humorous.

The “think” tanks (let’s call them In the Tanks)? Are happy to say WHATEVER helps the Mega Investors. Even if it directly contradicts what the Mega Investors are themselves saying.

For instance, there’s The American Enterprise Institute. Which in August of 2025 extruded “Institutional Investors in the US Housing Market: Myths and Realities:

“Media reports often accuse Wall Street investors of ‘buying up entire neighborhoods,’ citing that investors account for a quarter to a third of home purchases. However, these accusations conveniently conflate large institutional investors with small and medium-sized ones.”

Ummm…Citadel’s Market Cap is $65 billion. Qualifying under Congress’ aforementioned legislative definition (above $50 billion) as an “institutional investor” to whom the law would apply.

And really: Does it matter to the many tens of thousands of non-homeowners losing their homes to hedge funds - how large the hedge funds are?

It would appear the proposed $50 billion legislative floor - is too high.

Then there’s The American Action Forum. Which in February of 2025 extruded “Primer: Institutional Investors Aren’t Ruining the Housing Market:

“Institutional investors often purchased homes in a ‘high-growth and geographically concentrated area’ to ‘achieve operational efficiency and cost savings through economies of scale.’”

The quotes the “think” tank is citing - are from a May 2024 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report: “Rental Report: Information on Institutional Investment in Single-Family Homes.”

So you have a DC “think” tank - quoting the government. With words that have nothing to do with why Citadel LLC their own selves say they are “buying entire neighborhoods intended for rent instead of sale.”

Then there’s the…interestingly named Independent Institute. Who in June 2025 interestingly extruded “Institutional Investors Aren’t the Villains of America’s Housing Market.”

You get the idea.

The Mega Investors didn’t get to be Mega by being stupid. They’ve long prepared for opposition to their US home market evisceration.

Now that that opposition has finally achieved some level of messaging density (thank you, President Trump)?

I’m sure the Mega Investors will now pull out all the stops.

To make sure said opposition is fully stopped.