@olystuart

This executive order by Trump around limiting institutional buyers of single family homes is interesting but more of a political signal than a big immediate impact. He doesn't have the authority to ban a certain type of real estate transaction. He can direct federal agencies policy so they start shifting their guidance towards not directly supporting finance corporations buying SFRs. How many houses that would effect is probably small, Grok estimates 20,000 to 40,000 units per year. A larger impact could come from Congress passing a new law that affected all institutional buyers rather than just ones interacting with federal agencies. But that would still be limited to something like 3% of the total housing market max. And I have doubts it would pass. Anyway, I do think it's good to push for more limits on finance corp home buyers even if it's not huge numbers now because it could get much worse over time if we don't. We could be looking at a major real estate market cycle crash relatively soon, in which case the ruling class have a massive advantage in being able to buy up everyone's foreclosed homes when people get laid off. So I don't think it's bad, I just question its actual impact and, obviously, Trump's intentions. For reference here's the full text: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/01/stopping-wall-street-from-competing-with-main-street-homebuyers/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

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