Wall Street Has Spent Billions Buying Homes. A Crackdown Is Looming. [View all]

https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/wall-street-has-spent-billions-buying-homes-a-crackdown-is-looming-f85ae5f6

Wall Street Has Spent Billions Buying Homes. A Crackdown Is Looming.
Lawmakers say investors that scooped up hundreds of thousands of houses to rent out are driving up home prices
By Will Parker
April 29, 2024 5:40 am ET

Wall Street went on a home-buying spree. Now, more lawmakers want to stop it from ever happening again.

Democrats in the U.S. Senate and House have sponsored legislation that would force large owners of single-family homes to sell houses to family buyers. A Republican’s bill in the Ohio state legislature aims to drive out institutional owners through heavy taxation.

Lawmakers in Nebraska, California, New York, Minnesota and North Carolina are among those proposing similar laws.

These lawmakers say that investors that have scooped up hundreds of thousands of houses to rent out are contributing to the dearth of homes for sale and driving up home prices. They argue that investor buying has made it harder for first-time buyers to compete with Wall Street-backed investment firms and their all-cash offers.

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, though more recently their activity has slowed as interest rates rose and supply became tighter. Two of the largest home-buying firms, Invitation Homes and AMH, are publicly traded companies, while a number of other companies, backed by private equity, hold portfolios of tens of thousands of homes nationwide.

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