Marc Norman, Associate Dean at NYU’s Schack Institute of Real Estate, provides opinions of President Trump’s executive order restricting institutional investors from buying single-family homes, arguing that the policy rests on a misreading of what is actually driving unaffordability. In a recent Time Magazine feature, Norman walks through the data to explain why the order may not deliver the results it promises.
The order, signed in early 2026, frames large institutional investors as a primary driver of unaffordability for working families and first-time buyers. Norman takes issue with that framing: “It’s based on a misconception. Housing prices are going up because of supply constraints… supply and demand is always going to be the driver.” The numbers give context to his position. Large institutional investors own roughly 1% of the national single-family housing stock, while individual owners hold 87%. Norman points to Sun Belt markets like Austin and Nashville, where prices fell following post-COVID construction booms, as an indication that increasing supply has a meaningful impact on affordability.
Norman also raises a less-discussed consequence of the order: its potential effect on financial markets. “It’s definitely going to change the price of the stocks of the big players that are in that market, just because they just haven’t had constraints on them before,” he notes, pointing out that REITs with single-family holdings could lose value as a result. The article also highlights that the Trump administration’s tariffs on lumber and steel have contributed to higher construction costs, a dynamic that works against the order’s stated affordability goals. Housing economists quoted in the piece broadly suggest that without measures to meaningfully increase supply, structural pressures on affordability are likely to persist.
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