Trump’s newest order bans Wall Street from snapping up homes - but buyers shouldn’t celebrate just yet

Wall Street investors eager to buy up single-family properties may have met their match.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday banning Wall Street from buying homes. The move is the latest push from the administration to make buying a home easier for Americans after the president recently suggested he might buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds to lower mortgage rates.

The executive order gives the administration 30 days to nail down the exact definition of “Wall Street investor.” But based on the order’s text it is likely to target the “large institutional investor” - those big firms that buy up homes at a rate of hundreds of thousands per quarter.

The administration has 60 days to finalize guidelines that would bar agencies and government-sponsored enterprises from helping large institutional investors acquire “a single-family home that could otherwise be purchased by an individual owner-occupant,” according to the order.

The executive order also calls for the U.S. Attorney General and chairman of the Federal Trade Commission to review “substantial acquisitions” of single-family homes by large institutional investors.

In principle, the executive order is likely a welcome move for prospective homebuyers who’ve struggled in a housing market that’s experienced record highs for median home prices over the past few years, according to Federal Reserve data.

However, it may not have as big an impact on the single-family home market as hoped, according to a recent study from property data and property intelligence firm BatchData.

Institutional investors - firms that own 1,000 or more properties - accounted for just 2 percent of all investor-owned single-family homes in the third quarter of 2025, BatchData noted.

“The market remains dominated by small-scale participants,” BatchData’s study said. “Investors owning one to five properties hold nearly 92% of all investor-owned single-family homes, while those with six to 10 properties hold 4%.”