WASHINGTON, D.C. (States Newsroom) — The U.S. Senate passed a bill Thursday with a provision backed by U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock that would ban large corporations from owning too many homes.
The legislation, sponsored by Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren and South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott, passed the Senate on an 89-10 vote, an overwhelming show of bipartisanship on a proposal aimed at tackling recent concerns over affordability. The bill included a provision limiting the number of single-family homes an institutional investor can own to 350 homes.
Warnock said in a press call Wednesday before the bill’s passage that “Atlanta is ground zero for private equity’s domination of the housing market.” A 2024 U.S. Government Accountability Office report placed Atlanta as one of the top markets for homes owned by private equity firms, with 25% of single-family homes owned by a private equity firm.
“Let me make it plain: private equity’s greed is squeezing first-time homebuyers out of the market and pushing the American dream further out of reach,” Warnock said in a statement after the legislation passed the Senate.
On the state level, several bills have been introduced that would limit how many homes large institutional investors can own. House Bill 1228, sponsored by Chestnut Mountain Republican state Rep. Derrick McCollum, which would cap institutional single-family ownership to up to 1,000 homes, and Senate Bill 463, sponsored by Cumming Republican state Sen. Greg Dolezal, which would cap that number at 500 and bans international private investors from owning single-family homes outright for rental use. Both made it across to the other chamber before a key legislative deadline and have a chance at becoming law.
Dolezal said in early March while presenting the bill on the Senate floor that it’s hard for first-time home buyers to compete with these large investment firms. Even when the family is able to match a firm’s offer, the family can’t compete against other perks these companies offer, like their ability to forgo an inspection or to close in 14 days. He also said that because young adults are waiting to buy their first homes, the average first-time homebuyer could be stuck paying for their mortgage well into retirement age.
“The sad reality today in America is that the average age of a first-time home buyer has now crept up to 41 years old,” Dolezal said. “For the Americans today that are signing their first 30-year mortgage at 41-years-old, the math just doesn’t work.”
But limiting institutional ownership of single-family rental homes could negatively impact renters. At least two recent studies concluded that while limiting these large investors’ ability to purchase single-family properties could increase home prices, allowing them to buy large numbers of homes can also bring rent prices down.
Warnock said that he knows “what it’s like to be a young person and to need rental,” but that there are other provisions in the bill that are aimed at addressing the rental market. He said “this is focused on home ownership, and you don’t enhance one at the expense of the other.”
“Renters are not in competition with other working people who are just trying to buy a home. Their problem is private equity swooping up all of the stock, and so I’m trying to address that,” Warnock said, also pointing to other legislative work he’s done to address renters’ concerns as a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
The bill’s prospects in the House are unclear. President Donald Trump, who issued an executive order in January on housing affordability, said during a House GOP retreat that he wanted the House to focus instead on passing a bill to increase voter documentation.
