Episode summary
Logan Mohtashami on banning institutional investors
HousingWire Daily
· · 25 min · Hosts: Sarah Wheeler · Guests: Logan Mohtashami
Summary
Logan Mohtashami argued that President Trump’s plan to ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes is mostly a political signal, not a policy that would materially change the housing market. He said institutional buyers make up only a very small share of home purchases and that the idea is being used as a Wall Street villain narrative rather than a serious supply solution.
Mohtashami also said the proposal is about future purchases, not forced selling, which means it would not flood the market with inventory. He pushed back on the idea that the plan would significantly lower prices, saying the real effect on builders would be limited because the volume at stake is small, even if some homebuilders could see a modest headwind.
The host raised concerns about places like Atlanta, where institutional ownership is more concentrated, but Mohtashami said even there the share of total homes is still only in the low single digits. He argued that if policymakers truly wanted to move prices, they would have to target a much larger group of owners, which would create major optics, renter displacement, and inflation risks. In his view, that is why governments keep choosing Wall Street as the easier target.
Key takeaways
- Logan Mohtashami said institutional investors own a very small share of total homes, so banning them would not move the market much.
- He argued the Trump proposal is a future-purchases ban, not a forced-sale plan, so it would not create a big supply shock.
- Mohtashami said homebuilders could face a modest headwind from losing estimated 3% to 5% of sales volume tied to SFR buyers, according to KBW.
- He said even in Atlanta, institutional ownership is only about 4% of total homes, despite being 25% of investor ownership.
- Mohtashami argued policymakers avoid targeting mom-and-pop landlords because selling those homes could reduce rental supply and push rents higher.
- He said the proposal works politically because Wall Street is an easy villain, not because it solves housing affordability.
Notable quotes
“this is class warfare baiting about the left and the right because Wall Street is technically a good enemy”
“it is a very small portion of the homes bought postcoid. If you can do basic arithmetic and look at the data, you would know this”
“there was nothing on the discussion about forcing them to sell the properties”
“if you want the builders to build, they need to find buyers to buy these properties”
“the bulk of the ownership are people who live there. The bulk of the people with the rental supply are living in there”
How the episode opens
Welcome everyone. My guest today is lead analyst Logan Moto Shami to talk about Trump's plan to ban institutional home buyers from buying single family homes. Before we dive in, I want to say thank you to our sponsor Trust and Will for making this episode possible.
Logan, welcome back to the podcast on a topic that I know you want to talk about. You know, some days are just better than others and yesterday was one of those days and it continued into today. But of course, everyone knows um President Trump has discussed about uh banning all institutional investors from purchasing homes ever again because corporations shouldn't live in homes, right?
People should. And I was like, you know, I think people actually live in those homes. But, you know, maybe I don't know something.
And in any case, as you can imagine, my whole social media thing just lit up like a Christmas tree. Um, and you know, we Let's go back to a few months ago. You know, some of the polling for the White House, affordability was an issue.
Not because I don't think President Trump cares if Democrats don't like it, but it looks like Republicans were saying affordability is an issue. So, what what has happened since that time frame? 50-year mortgage test balloon that really didn't go as well as planned.
I think portable mortgage sounds interesting, but it's really hard to rewrite those contracts. So that you know so another test balloon before the announcement of the the official things is let's ban 50-year uh or let's ban institutional buyers and uh uh James Fishbach who was first considered Trump's um uh person about for the Federal Reserve. He uh he's really spearheaded this as well.
I think he's running for governor uh for Florida.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- institutional investors ban
- single-family homes
- housing market policy
- mortgage and real estate
Watch the episode
Watch “Logan Mohtashami on banning institutional investors” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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