Ben Shapiro says it's “bad policy” to stop corporations from buying single-family homes
Shapiro: “The attempt to stop corporations, major corporations from buying up single-family homes, it sounds fun and it sounds good, and it will have literally zero impact on the cost of housing”
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From the January 8, 2026, edition of The Daily Wire's The Ben Shapiro Show
BEN SHAPIRO (HOST): Meanwhile, the Trump administration is trying to find some policy win with regard to affordability.
According to Politico, the White House is now drafting an executive order broadly targeted at addressing Americans' frustration with the cost of living, including a push to allow people to dip into their retirement and college savings account to afford down payments on homes. The document, according to two people familiar with the drafting, is expected to include an action previewed by President Trump on Wednesday that would move toward banning large investors from acquiring single-family homes.
Well, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said Senate Democrats tried to do this last year and Republicans blocked it. Well, I mean, that's true. It also happens not to be particularly good policy.
The attempt to stop corporations, major corporations, from buying up single-family homes, it sounds fun and it sounds good, and it will have literally zero impact on the cost of housing.
How do we know this? Well, because we actually have evidence as to how many single-family homes are owned by gigantic corporations. Some of it is rental stock, by the way. So, you know, when you're asking, you know, a corporation buys a house and then flips it and then sells it again, that's a different question from a corporation buys a home and then rents it.
If a corporation buys a home or creates a home and then rents it, that actually lowers the rents because it's increasing the supply of rental units. As far as corporations buying houses and then reselling those same houses, typically, this is done in areas with low regulation, and it's typically done in areas where the price is already going up. And it actually lowers the price because they then build new inventory.
So, this is just bad policy. The reality is that large institutional investors own about 2% of all single-family rental stock. That's rental stock. And, again, when a giant corporation buys up a block of houses and converts them to rents, that just opened up a bunch of rental units, which lowers the price because you increase the supply.