Democrats at the Arizona Capitol are hopeful that support from President Donald Trump is enough to convince their Republican counterparts to back a plan to stop out-of-state investors from buying up the state’s housing supply.
In a recent social media post, Trump called on Congress to ban large institutional investors from buying single-family homes to make it easier for young families to buy their first house.
“People live in homes, not corporations,” Trump said in the post.
Rep. Oscar De Los Santos, the top Democrat in the Arizona House of Representatives, said the president’s nascent proposal sounds a lot like ideas backed by Democrats for years to combat rising housing costs in the Valley.
According to the Maricopa Association of Governments, 26% of residential properties in Maricopa County are either investor-owned or occupied seasonally by out-of-state residents.
De Los Santos, a frequent Trump critic, welcomed the opening provided by the president’s support.
“When it comes to Donald Trump and us, even a broken clock is right twice a day,” De Los Santos said.
After being known as a relatively affordable state for years, the home prices and rents in Arizona have risen steeply in recent years, pressuring officials to come up with ways to increase the housing supply and lower costs.
According to the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency, home prices increased by around 46% from early 2021 to late 2025, though costs have remained relatively flat over the past two years.
But there are questions about whether banning investor ownership will bring down prices today.
Real estate analyst Tina Tamboer told KJZZ’s The Show that the initial price spike in 2021 coincided with an influx in institutional investors, who accounted for around 10% of single family sales at the time.
However, Tamboer said that number has dropped in recent years and the institutional investors now make up a small fraction of sales, suggesting banning them will do little to affect home prices now.
“Not in our current state,” Tamboer told The Show. “I'd say since most of the institutions have already pulled back, we're not seeing anything that would impact us here short term, but it could potentially lessen a future wave of demand, lessen the impact of institutions if they pass it.”
De Los Santos said he has already spoken with Republican lawmakers who support the idea.
That includes Rep. Nick Kupper (R-Surprise), who said he plans to introduce a bill to limit the number of single-family detached homes that institutional investors can purchase. The bill wouldn’t affect other types of housing, like duplexes, triplexes or apartments, he said.
“What's happening right now is the more of those homes they buy, they create more of a rental market and you decrease how many homes are available to purchase,” Kupper said. “Of course, that raises the price, unfortunately. So now you price people out, you force more into rentals that maybe don't want to be in a rental, and it's kind of a vicious cycle.”
Speaker Steve Montenegro (R-Goodyear), who controls which bills are heard in the House of Representatives, was non-committal when asked whether he would support a state-level ban similar to what Trump is proposing.
“In Arizona, we want to make sure that we're always protecting private property rights, and we want to make sure that we're fighting for best availability for folks to have homes, passing policies that are going to help them in that process,” Montenegro said. “But we also hold in high respect people's personal individual rights and private property rights.”
Montenegro said no bills have actually been introduced yet to target investor ownership.
“If they're being introduced now, let's wait to see when they're introduced, and then from there we'll take it,” he said.
Kupper said he is still working on his proposal, and De Los Santos said he plans to introduce a bill this week.
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