It establishes a 180-day “first look period” giving families priority to buy single-family homes owned, foreclosed or managed by the Federal Housing Administration, Federal Housing Finance Agency, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Department of Agriculture, the text reads.
If one of the relevant entities violates the first-look period, the agency must publicly report the violation, impose a fine of $100,000 or one-third of the sale price and reverse the sale as long as it does not breach any contracts, according to the bill.
The legislation also requires each agency to maintain a public website listing eligible properties, the number sold to qualified first-look buyers, the pricing method and the ratio of the sale prices to the properties’ market value.
Trump took aim at the issue on social media Wednesday. “For a very long time, buying and owning a home was considered the pinnacle of the American Dream. It was the reward for working hard, and doing the right thing, but now, because of the Record High Inflation caused by Joe Biden and the Democrats in Congress, that American Dream is increasingly out of reach for far too many people, especially younger Americans,” he wrote. “It is for that reason, and much more, that I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it.”
Harrigan emphasized that homeownership is becoming increasingly out of reach for young Americans in a statement to the Caller.
“Homeownership is slipping out of reach for a lot of Americans, especially young families,” said Harrigan. “Only about 30 percent of Americans under 35 own a home today, roughly half the rate of a generation ago. That gap didn’t appear overnight, and it’s not because people stopped working hard. More and more, families are getting outbid by large financial firms buying up single-family homes at scale.”
As of 2022, roughly 18% of single-family homes in Charlotte and nearly 13% in Raleigh were owned by major institutional investors, with those numbers continuing to rise, according to a United States Government Accountability Office report.
Harrigan reiterated the President’s words, writing, “People live in homes, not corporations, and institutional investors shouldn’t be locking families out. The Families First Act, which I introduced with Josh Riley, helps ensure federally backed homes go to families first, not Wall Street.”
