Among the many things President Trump has been taking action on during his administration, making homebuying affordable again is one of them. Since his second term begam, the President has been pushing to pass a ban on corporations buying up homes across America, which has been one of the direct causes of our current housing crisis.
For years now, companies like Blackrock and others have been outbidding American homebuyers with their massive war chests. They outbid them with cash, steal the home from a hardworking American, then turn it into a rental for their own profit. It has made home ownership for young Americans barely a pipe dream, with the average first-time homeowner in America now being 41 years old.
It has become an absurd practice we have allowed for years, as some almost brazen effort to destroy the middle class. But no longer. There is a bill in congress, at President Trump's behest, to ban these corporations from killing the American Dream. The bill, in short, would ban them from buying these homes, making homeownership attainable again.
Texas real estate expert Cliff Freeman says this has become a problem across the country, but Houston in particular has seen big issues.
"Just in Houston alone, in areas like Cypress, Katy and Spring...there are eight firms who own a combined 11,000 Harris County homes," he says.
That is 11,000 homes that could be owned by young people trying to start a life and a family. Instead, they are used as a cash cow to be rented out. They are not shy about their efforts to kill the homebuyer dream, either.
In Houston, resident Rachel Wiggins was one of many who faced off with these corporations when trying to buy a home. In her case, these corporations outbid her for 20 separate homes. Twenty separate instances of a corporation killing her dream of homeownership. All to make a few extra bucks for their already rich companies. Not to mention, their actions have also caused a direct increase in home prices.
But thankfully, the Trump administration is making their efforts to address it. The House passed a version originally, but it lacked clarifications on what exactly would happen to the homes owned by the corporations. But the Senate has since clarified with language that is, surprisingly, very helpful for homebuyers.
"The Senate bill specifies these institutional owners, after seven years, would have to give the current renters first dibs at buying these houses," Freeman says.
That is an overall very good thing, something we get little of from Congress. That takes away corporations' ability to gift the home to someone of their choice. It gives power back to the homebuyer again for the first time in decades.
Which, after all, is what the American dream is supposed to be at its core.
"That is the whole idea is to increase home ownership, get rid of these rentals, and get people situated where they have that American dream to work toward," says Freeman. "It is a hard thing to break...going from renter to homeowner is a big deal and is really the basis for the American dream."
President Trump is trying to take action, but it will be up to Congress to follow through.
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