Executive Order 14376 directs federal agencies to limit purchases of single-family homes by large institutional investors when a family could otherwise buy the home. The order was signed at the White House on Jan. 20, 2026, and the Federal Register published it on Jan. 23, 2026.
The order states that it is Administration policy that investors of that kind should not acquire a single-family home a family could purchase instead. It says the policy is intended to keep those homes available for American families and to widen paths to homeownership. The order does not say that it revokes or amends any earlier order.
Within 30 days of the order’s date, the Secretary of the Treasury must develop definitions of “large institutional investor” and “single-family home” for carrying out the order. The secretary must do that in consultation with the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. Other agencies may adopt the definitions as needed.
Within 60 days, five officials must issue guidance, as appropriate. They are the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the Administrator of General Services, and the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The order directs that guidance to stop agencies and government-sponsored enterprises, as far as the law allows, from aiding a large institutional investor in buying a single-family home an individual owner-occupant could otherwise purchase.
The guidance must also stop those entities from selling or otherwise transferring federal property in a way that puts a single-family home with a large institutional investor. It must promote sales to individual owner-occupants, including through provisions against circumvention, what the order calls first-look policies, and disclosure requirements. The order requires narrow exceptions for build-to-rent projects developed as rental communities, including those planned, permitted, financed, and constructed for that use, and other narrow exceptions an agency finds appropriate.
The Treasury secretary must also review rules and guidance covering large institutional investors that acquire or hold single-family homes and consider revisions, if appropriate and allowed by law. The Attorney General and the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission must review substantial acquisitions, including a series of acquisitions, in local single-family housing markets for anti-competitive effects. The order directs them to give priority, as appropriate, to antitrust enforcement against coordinated vacancy and pricing strategies by those investors in local rental markets.
The housing secretary must, as far as the law allows, require owners and managing agents of single-family rentals in federal housing assistance programs to disclose direct or indirect owners, managers, or affiliates. That disclosure must include changes in ownership or control, to the extent needed to identify any role of large institutional investors.
The Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative, Political and Public Affairs must prepare a legislative recommendation to put the policy into law. The order says it will be carried out consistent with applicable law and only if appropriations are available. It also says it creates no right or benefit that anyone can enforce in court against the United States, its agencies, or their officers.