Watchdog Warns Treasury’s Institutional Investor Rules Risk Shrinking Housing Supply

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Kara Zupkus (224) 456-0257

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the U.S. Treasury Department proposed regulations implementing Section 1001 of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which restricts large institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes. The Treasury noted that the legislation allows certain categories of excepted purchases, such as purchases made for build-to-rent programs, renovate-to-rent programs, homeownership programs, and programs to increase homeownership. 

Ross Marchand, Executive Director of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, offered the following comment:

“Institutional investors own less than one percent of U.S. single-family houses and are buying less than two percent of all homes. Barring these investors from buying single-family homes—even with commonsense exemptions in place—will result in fewer homes being built and higher prices for millions of future homeowners. Housing affordability would be better served by prioritizing the bill’s provisions rolling back red tape—including simplifying environmental reviews—and implementing them as soon as possible.

“The American housing market has long been trapped in a dense thicket of local red tape, permitting delays, and costly bureaucratic hurdles that artificially inflate building costs and throttle supply. With a housing supply gap of more than four million homes, restricting a sliver of the market is the wrong fix.

“The Trump administration and lawmakers must ensure that onerous rules don’t get in the way of the next generation of Americans buying the home of their dreams.”

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The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to educating the public through the research, analysis, and dissemination of information on the government’s impact on the economy.