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Democratic lawmakers in both the U.S. House of Representatives<\/strong><\/a> and the U.S. Senate<\/strong><\/a> have introduced bills in their respective chambers designed to ban hedge funds from participating in the single-family housing market, citing supply<\/a> and affordability<\/a> challenges as justification.<\/p>\n First reported<\/a> by the New York Times, Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon introduced the \u201cEnd Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act of 2023\u201d to the Senate. Rep. Adam Smith of Washington introduced the House version.<\/p>\n Democratic Reps. Jeff Jackson and Alma Adams of North Carolina introduced a separate bill, the \u201cAmerican Neighborhoods Protection Act.” It would \u201crequire corporate owners of more than 75 single-family homes to pay an annual fee of $10,000 per home into a housing trust fund to be used as down payment assistance for families,\u201d according to the Times.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have created a situation where ordinary Americans aren\u2019t bidding against other families, they\u2019re bidding against the billionaires of America for these houses,\u201d Sen. Merkley told the Times. \u201cAnd it\u2019s driving up rents and it\u2019s driving up the home prices.\u201d<\/p>\n In an announcement<\/a> on his congressional website, Rep. Smith expounded on his reasons for supporting the effort.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 1971, my father was able to buy the house I grew up in for $15,000 on the salary he earned as a baggage handler at SeaTac Airport,\u201d he said. \u201cThat same house would cost nearly $500,000 today yet wages for workers like my father have not kept up. Too many families in the Puget Sound region and across the country are struggling to afford to rent or buy a home.\u201d<\/p>\n An “increasing number of large investors purchasing a significant percentage of single-family homes” exacerbates the issue, which “squeezes out prospective buyers,\u201d Smith added.<\/p>\n In an interview with the Times, Smith acknowledged that realities in Congress \u2014 which just saw its Republican majority thinned by one member after the retirement announcement<\/a> of Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California \u2014 make passage of the bills unlikely. Still, Congress must start a conversation on this issue, he said.<\/p>\n Data shows that institutional investors currently maintain a sizable stake in the single-family housing space.<\/p>\n \u201cBy June 2022, institutional investors owned 3 percent of all single-family rentals nationwide, but in more affordable markets they owned a considerable market share; in Charlotte, they owned 20 percent, according to the Urban Institute<\/a><\/strong>,\u201d the Times explained. \u201cEven as the housing market slows, investors have remained active, buying 26 percent of the single-family homes that sold in June 2023, according to CoreLogic<\/strong><\/a>, a data analytics company.\u201d<\/p>\n However, David Howard of the National Rental Home Council<\/strong> told the Times that the issue is not institutional investors as much as a lack of action from homebuilders.<\/p>\n \u201cPolicies really need to be shaped and crafted so that they support the production, investment and development of new housing,\u201d he said. \u201cI think bills that work against that ultimately are just going to perpetuate the challenges we\u2019re already facing.\u201d<\/p>\n Recently, Democratic lawmakers also turned their eyes toward a bill proposal<\/a> seeking to \u201cpreserve\u201d and \u201crevitalize\u201d manufactured home<\/a> communities across the United States.<\/p>\nAffordability challenges<\/h2>\n
Likelihood of passage is low<\/h2>\n