THE SOUTH — President Donald Trump has proposed banning institutional investors from buying single-family homes. According to data from Realtor.com, institutional investors who have made over 350 single-family purchases between 2015 and 2025 account for 1% of total single-family home purchases nationwide.

Institutional investors disproportionately own a larger share of single-family homes in the South. In the Memphis, Tennessee-Mississippi-Arkansas metropolitan area, institutional investors own 4.4% of single-family homes and large investors own 4.4%, bringing combined investor ownership to 19.2% with a median list price of $299,900. In Birmingham, Alabama, combined investor ownership reaches 15.7% with a median list price of $289,475.

Other Southern metropolitan areas show similar patterns of high investor ownership. In Raleigh-Cary, North Carolina, combined investor ownership is 15.0% with a median list price of $440,000. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas shows 13.9% combined ownership at $405,000, while Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia spans 13.5% at $415,000. Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, Georgia has 13.2% combined ownership with a median price of $400,000.

Additional metropolitan areas reflect the trend across the region. San Antonio-New Braunfels, Texas shows 12.2% combined investor ownership at $319,990, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina has 12.0% at $330,000. Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood, Indiana shows 11.8% combined ownership with a median price of $305,000, while Colorado Springs, Colorado has 9.7% at $587,383.

Institutional investors are defined as those who have made over 350 single-family home purchases between 2015 and 2025. In all but one of the metropolitan areas with the largest investor presence, one in ten single-family homes is owned by an investor.

Large investors have taken advantage of affordable markets when housing prices fall. During the COVID-19 pandemic, firms like BlackRock purchased homes when prices fell and then rented them at favorable rates. The Sun Belt region has been a common location for investors to buy homes due to affordable housing in recent years.

Institutional investors have expanded the rental market by giving some renters the opportunity to live in areas they could not afford to buy in.

Jake Krimmel, a senior economist at Realtor.com, said institutional investors are viewed as unusual participants in housing markets. "People see institutional investors as a maybe strange or unnatural player in the housing market," Krimmel said. "When it comes to the single-family market, this is a non-traditional actor, and the trend kind of started coming out of the Great Recession."