As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to debate the Senate-passed 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a new analysis reveals that the large corporate investors targeted by a proposed ban included in the legislative package actually comprise a miniscule and shrinking fraction of the national housing market.
Research published Friday by Realtor.com found that institutional investors — defined in the report as entities that have purchased 350 or more single-family homes since 2015 — accounted for only 1% of total single-family home purchases nationally over the past decade.
Under the legislation advanced by the Senate, entities owning 350 or more properties would be banned from acquiring additional properties, with some exceptions.
However, according to Realtor.com’s research, rather than Wall Street giants dominating the housing space, small “mom-and-pop” landlords with fewer than 10 properties now drive the market, accounting for more than 60% of all investor acquisitions in 2025 — up from 50% in 2021-22.
“Large corporate investors are often viewed as a primary driver of today’s housing affordability challenges, but the data show their footprint is relatively small and has been shrinking,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com, in a press release announcing the report’s findings. “While institutional investors expanded during the favorable buying conditions of the pandemic market, they remain a minor share of overall purchases.”
The findings highlight a potential disconnect between the prevailing political narrative and current market realities. The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act aims to improve affordability for everyday homebuyers by, in part, barring large-scale corporate acquisitions, theoretically freeing up inventory. But Realtor.com data shows that institutional buying peaked in 2021 and subsequently plummeted 65% by 2025 as capital costs and interest rates increased.
In aggregate, “institutional investors are a drop in the ocean when it comes to the national picture,” the report noted.
While their national footprint is small, the report acknowledges that institutional activity is hyper-concentrated geographically, particularly within specific Sun Belt metros.
The top 10 metropolitan areas account for more than 50% of all institutional purchases. Memphis, Tenn., holds the highest share, with institutional buyers making up 4.4% of total single-family sales.
Even in major hubs like Houston — which ranks third nationally for overall institutional footprint — corporate buyers accounted for just 2.7% of total single-family home sales. However, within specific Houston-area zip codes, these buyers captured up to 73.3% of the investor market. This indicates that mega-landlords primarily crowd out smaller real estate investors competing for the same types of properties, rather than systematically displacing traditional owner-occupants.
Notably, the report found that supply-constrained, high-priced markets see almost no institutional activity. In New York and San Francisco, for example, the institutional share of single-family purchases sits at a negligible 0.1% and 0.2%, respectively.
Ultimately, Realtor.com’s researchers suggest that a ban on large corporate buyers will not be a silver bullet for the nation’s severe housing shortage. With the U.S. housing supply gap currently standing at 4 million homes, Hale noted that “policies focused on boosting housing supply are likely to have a far greater impact on affordability and homeownership than restricting a small segment of buyers.”
