Link: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bipartisan-bill-aims-to-block-big-investors-from-buying-single-family-homes/

The legislation, known as the Homes for American Families Act, would amend the landmark Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 to make it illegal for investment funds with over $150 million in assets to buy single-family homes, condominiums or townhouses. It doesn't apply to homebuilders that are constructing units for sale.

I wonder where they came up with that number? On the one hand, it seems quite large. But on the other hand, in some markets simply having 150 units under management would push you over that limit.

I imagine it's something like 'grab the 99th percential of home prices in the US and average it, then round to a nice number'. There are some (though very few) single structures classified as single-family homes which would push you over that limit.

It would also task the Justice Department's antitrust division, which brings civil suits to quash alleged anticompetitive practices, with enforcing the law.

Lmao

How about making the law

“cannot buy a single family home unless no single family are actively bidding for the property for at least 6 months”

Might as well say invisible unicorns will enforce this.

So instead we get gigantic investment funds spinning up hundreds of LLCs named things like BRIIINKLW like those shitty Amazon brands. They funnel each one of them 140m, and control a bunch of small individual businesses through an "outsourced" MSP that handles all of the business side and is also owned by them, but because they don't own the properties or the assets, it doesn't matter. Money gets funneled the way money gets funneled, through investments and donations etc.

Problem is the seller can just collude with the investment firm, jack up the price so regular people aren't bidding and wait out the 6 months.

Bipartisan because they know it's just a feel good thing that will do nothing.

"institutional investors own a very small slice of single-family homes in the United States. As the chief economist at the real estate platform Redfin, Fairweather says investors purchase about 17% of homes. But most of those purchases are by mom-and-pop investors, not big firms like Blackstone. Institutional investors just don't own enough homes to be the main culprit for high home prices."

The U.S. homeownership rate is around 65%.
As of December 2022, the five largest investors owned about 300,000 homes — just under 2% of single-family rental homes nationally.
Institutional investors own roughly 2% to 25% of single-family rentals in major markets. (The "mom and pop" investors, your neighbor with 3+ houses)

https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2025/09/09/g-s1-87699/private-equity-corporate-landlords

Also in that article, Erb is a piece of shit. "It's everyone's fault but mine. I'm just offering a service!" Fuck you Erb.

I think I'd rather see this adressed on the property tax side with a homestead tax exemption. Let counties and municipalities significantly raise property tax rates then offer homestead tax rebates to the primary resident. Maybe even offer a monthly rebate to match rent/mortgage payments. Rent would go up, but the rebate should match the rent increase.

This would make empty units, short term rentals, and vacation home more expensive to hold on to compared to being pccupied by a long term resident. This would also let each region decide on the ratio of occupied vs unoccupied net property tax rates to dial in what works for them. A coastal community might have a much different equilibrium point than a suburb to a big city for example.

A lot of areas already have homestead exemptions for seniors and low income residents, so it doesn't even require much in terms of new legal frameworks.

Do it! Pass it!

Institutional investors own roughly 2% to 25% of single-family rentals

2% seems like a large number, that is 1 out of every 50 homes. That's 1 house on every street.
25% just seems insanely large.

Or decide that no investment funds could do it. Why should they be able to do it at all? These homes should be for residents.

Oh come on it's not like there is a corrupted pedophile protector running that place... Oh shit.

That has to be illegal somehow. A multi-billion dollar entity should not be able to spin up any LLCs. LLCs are for small businesses owned by people local to that area (except Montana tax loophole LLCs - that shit needs to be closed, too, geeting real sick of seeing douchebags driving giant lifted "business" trucks or goddamn supercars with Montana plates in not-Montana).

They'll do the same things that various foreign investors already do in British Columbia.

They have family members "own" properties but never record any income. Thats the most common one.

Let counties and municipalities significantly raise property tax rates then offer homestead tax rebates to the primary resident. Maybe even offer a monthly rebate to match rent/mortgage payments. Rent would go up, but the rebate should match the rent increase.

As a renter, that will absolutely backfire on us. Rent is already expensive as shit, I'm paying almost double for my current place than I was for my last place. Both were single-family homes.

The problem with that is that it doesn't do anything on the front end, with private equity outbidding families in the first place. Yes, it makes it more expensive for the corp after the sale, but all that does is justify raising rents.

I'm not sure whether this proposal will accomplish what it intends to do, but at least the intent is to limit the ability of these private firms to buy up inventory in the first place.

Pass the bill and the refine it over time. People will find loop holes and then those can be closed as needed. Laws don’t need to be perfect at first pass, but getting it on the books would be a huge shift in the right direction.

And apartment buildings less than 20 units.

Corporations are People now, though. So telling a multi-billion entity they can't do something that a small local business can is discrimination against corporate persons.

Won't anyone think of the corporations?

Currently, large corporate landlords are willing to let housing units sit empty vs letting market rates drop. A company with 500 units makes the same amount leasing 400 units at $1500/mo as they would leasing 470 units at $1300/mo and they have less overhead. The realpage software lets them coordinate with all the other corporate landlords without direct communication.

The reason I think this policy would help renters is by making vacant units significantly more expensive and pushing corporate property managers to actually compete rather than sit on vacancies.

Yeah, honestly that seems pretty win/win.

That's why the homestead credit would only be payable to the resident. Residency is what matters here not the paper owner.

I won't claim there aren't potential loopholes in a casually described plan, but the one you brought up doesn't apply without fraudulent claims of residency.

It disincentivizes speculative holding and buying up inventory to reduce supply without demonstrated demand. Large landlords are willing to sit on vacant inventory in order to keep market rates high. By penalizing holding units vacant, that should incentivise either setting more competitive rents, or selling/not buying excess inventory.

In markets where there is a true undersupply of inventory and there aren't vacancies then, yes, this policy wouldn't have much benefit.

They state, and I made italic, that the number over 2% are all "mom and pop" investors. Those that would be nowhere near the $150 million limit the law would affect.

Anti-collusion laws could just as easily be part of the system. With mandatory jail time and fines included.

Then again, laws about this issue probably need to be studied and verified for their effectiveness and to see how the market and how nefarious people will respond.

Reading the actual bill I think what you are describing would not work.

Emphasis mine.

‘‘(I) with assets under manage-11 ment of not less than $150,000,000; 12 or 13 ‘‘(II) that is directly or indirectly 14 owned or controlled by a person that 15 directly or indirectly owns or controls 16 1 or more investment companies or 17 private funds with total assets under 18 management of not less than 19 $150,000,000. 20

But I am not lawyer so maybe your idea would work.

I'd imagine the core idea is to try and limit investing for individuals only - not organizations.

Only for over $150,000,000 companies? How about $5,000,000? No one should get to own 400 homes, either!

Should make it an individual cause of action. Let individual renters sue their landlords if they can prove they own too much housing. Set statutory damages as the property itself. Landlords who own too much housing will have their properties confiscated by their renters.

Dunno where you're buying $12,000 homes. I won't argue with the point though, they really don't need hundreds or thousands of single family homes for investments

They are listed as the primary resident.

Why not both?

What? $150,000,000 will get you about 400 $375,000 homes.

You said 5m...?

$5 million is four small, rotting old homes in California. Maybe eight in the middle of the desert.

I like this legislation, but I also think that all income from residential property the owner does not occupy should be over 100% and property taxes over 50% per year. Nobody needs more than one home, and if you have them, you should pay society dearly for each you keep out of the hands of those who need it.

The loopholes seem super obvious to me. Just have a bunch of $149m real estate trusts, whose shares are owned by another fund.

I love this. It’s a genuinely good idea.

Investment funds, not companies. A $150,000,000 fund sounds like a lot but it’s smaller than the pension fund of a mid-sized company (3,000 employees, $50k total contribution per employee on average).

This won't do much. Vacancy rates are not high in the US, so the hypothesised mechanism that this would translate to high prices/rents - artificial restriction of supply - is not happening.

Y'all not read the article or something? The bill is for anyone over $150,000,000. I'm saying it should be more like 5,000,000, because no entity should get to own like 400 houses? There was never any ambiguity to my statement about thinking I was speaking of the $5,000,000 owning 400 houses unless you were a damned idiot at math.

Where are you thinking from my statement; that has two wildly different numbers in it for a monetary amount is leading you to think the 400 houses was in reference to the impossibly small amount of money for that many houses, and not the much larger amount of money that makes perfect sense to buy 400 houses with?

Its a start. But legally no individual should be able to own more than 2 properties either.

Because the rules of english heavily imply it.

Your first sentence is clearly rhetorical.

Your second sentence poses a questions as an alternative.

Your final sentence, not being a question, can be inferred to be an answer to the alternative question posed, reinforced by the fact that english includes a right-branching bias and “nearest noun” assumption.

This is also the internet, and people say mathematically and factually incorrect things constantly, so there is no reason for a casual reader to break the formal or informal rules of english to decide whether a rather straightforward comment is actually ambiguously misphrased rather than merely incorrect.

I hope this answers your question.

My answer wouldn't make any sense as a response to the $5,000,000 though. So regardless of the ambiguity to which number I was referring to in the same paragraph, anyone with a small semblance of reasoning would be able to work out that I must have been referring to the former $ and not the latter. This would be even more enforced had the actual article been read.

Imagine: trying to do something that would actually help Americans instead of all this performative bullshit aimed at harming America.

5 million? Why would it be cut off there?

It was pretty ambiguous, when you say 'either' at the end of your comparative statement, it implies that the latter is what you're referring to.

Anyhow I get what you're saying, no need to be rude