President Donald Trump said recently on social media he would ask Congress to stop large investors and private equity firms from buying single-family homes.

His plan did not have many details but echoed a common refrain across the U.S. that investors should not own homes and that they drive up prices.

Critics have argued the issue is overstated, with an estimated 4% of single-family rentals owned by institutional investors. Studies over the years have routinely shown San Diego County as having one of the lowest rates of institutional investors.

Still, the move is likely to be popular with voters and even stopping some big firms, like Blackstone, from buying properties could make a small difference in the real estate market.

Question: Should Congress bar big investors from buying single-family homes?

Economists

Ray Major, economist

YES: Institutional investors should be banned from owning single-family homes. The American dream is built on homeownership, and every person in the United States should be able to work hard and afford a home. Institutional investors reduce the supply and increase home prices turning potential homeowners into lifelong renters. This, in the long run, will eliminate the average American’s ability to build generational wealth and pass it on to their children.

Caroline Freund, UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy

NO: Investors have mixed effects on housing affordability. Families who cannot afford to buy benefit from renting in neighborhoods with strong schools. Investors can also stabilize markets during downturns, as they did after the financial crisis when prices collapsed. To improve affordability, limiting ownership by large investors in markets where they have pricing power would make more sense than an all-out ban. And if the goal is to increase housing supply and improve affordability, there are far better tools than investment restrictions.

Kelly Cunningham, San Diego Institute for Economic Research

NO: The vast majority of single-family rental homes are owned by small to mid-size landlords, less than 5% by large investors. Blaming big firms seems a populous desire to make the administration look like caring about home prices and doing something about affordability, but ignoring real drivers of housing costs and actual problems caused by overregulation, development restrictions and compounding fees. Blaming investors could end up with policies having adverse consequences on home markets altogether.

Alan Gin, University of San Diego

YES: Even though institutional investors are a small part of the market, their influence is growing. They are important at the margin, which can have big implications for some communities. By increasing the demand for housing, they cause prices to go up, which leads to housing price inflation as one of the biggest contributors to the elevated overall inflation rate. They can also squeeze out individual buyers, who may have difficulty competing with all-cash offers in a high-interest-rate environment.

James Hamilton, UC San Diego

NO: If an investor buys a home and rents it out, that is one less home occupied by an owner and one more home occupied by a renter. This does not change the overall cost of housing. Moreover, the Constitution does not give Congress or the president the power to impose such a rule. This is a local problem, not a national issue. The real solution is to reduce local fees and restrictions on home building.

Norm Miller, University of San Diego

NO: This limit on institutional ownership is symbolic of populous-driven interference in the housing market, and just like rent controls, it is harmful in the long run, inhibiting capital allocation and new supply in the housing market. Home prices and rent levels are overwhelmingly driven by supply-demand fundamentals: i.e. job growth, migration, zoning constraints, NIMBYs and construction levels. Institutions may manage rents more systematically, using dynamic pricing tools and standardized operating procedures — but they do not set the market. They respond to it.

David Ely, San Diego State University

NO: The shortage of affordable single-family homes is primarily due to insufficient new construction. Existing homeowners choosing not to upgrade because they do not want to give up their low-rate mortgage is a contributing factor. Given the relatively small share of single-family homes owned by institutional investors, restricting their purchase of homes will not materially expand the stock of housing available to households or slow price appreciation.

Executives

Phil Blair, Manpower

NO: The issue is not who owns rental properties, but how few there are available. The private sector has found a real estate investment niche and deserves to be able to exploit it. The law of supply and demand says build more housing and the rental prices will collapse. The administration could be opening up thousands of acres of underutilized land across the country for much-needed housing.

Chris Van Gorder, Scripps Health

YES: The percentages might be low in terms of numbers of homes purchased by large investors, private equity or other corporate investors. But their purchases do escalate the price of homes by reducing the inventory available for those wishing to purchase homes for their own personal use by private assets. I think this could modestly control the price of homes by increasing availability for private purchasers.

Jamie Moraga, Franklin Revere

NO: President Trump proposed banning large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes. The key word “more” suggests a limit, not a sell-off. Instead of an outright ban, Congress could find bipartisan support for assessing a cap on institutional single-family homeownership. A cap could ease competition for first-time buyers, help protect tenants from “mega-landlords” and reduce market concentration. It could also help balance housing affordability, rental supply, and homebuilding impacts.

Gary London, London Moeder Advisors

YES: But this is a bit of economic dodgeball because there are relatively few homes held in institutional portfolios in San Diego. I propose legislation that focuses on 1) zoning and land use policies to encourage new housing construction, 2) incentivize senior citizen downsizing by eliminating capital gains tax and 3) allow a one-time pass-through of existing property taxes for new transactions. Then a more robust resale market would emerge, coupled with demand for new housing.

Bob Rauch, R.A. Rauch & Associates

NO: Institutional investors represent a small share of the housing market, so banning them would do little to lower prices. They also supply rental housing for people who can’t or don’t want to buy. Proposals to restrict who can purchase property mirror the kinds of policies pushed in New York City by Mayor Mamdani. We need to reduce regulations, taxes, and fees that constrain supply. Limiting who can buy homes shrinks the market and discourages construction.

Austin Neudecker, Weave Growth

YES: While institutional ownership currently only represents 4% of the market, funds with increasing algorithmic targeting, cash bids and conversion to rentals can drive prices and create negative externalities, especially impacting first-time buyers. First, run market-specific trials with short sunsets and analyze the impact on prices, supply and rental affordability before broader implementation or allow them to lapse.

Have an idea for an Econometer question? Email me at phillip.molnar@sduniontribune.com. Follow me on Threads: @phillip020

The city of Oceanside has begun a dune restoration pilot project aimed at reversing years of sand loss along the coastline and strengthening coastal resilience.

The project is underway north of the Oceanside Pier, where crews have been installing posts and fencing designed to capture windblown sand and help rebuild dunes that once naturally protected the shoreline.

“This whole area was filled with dunes. In fact, all of the harbor was a big dune system that connected to all the estuaries there,” said Jayme Timberlake, a coastal zone administrator for the city of Oceanside.

The North Oceanside Coastal Dune Restoration Pilot Project is the latest effort to address erosion that has steadily reduced beach sand for decades. According to a study from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, sand along Oceanside’s coast has been diminishing since the 1940s, when harbor projects began. While annual dredging has helped replenish some of that sand, erosion remains an ongoing issue.

Crews from the California Conservation Corps were seen hammering and drilling Wednesday as part of the installation process. The goal, advocates say, is to create conditions that allow dunes to rebuild naturally.

“The sand is blown, it hits, it hits the fences, it hits the vegetation and then it starts depositing and growing that back beach area, so you’ll get that little dune hump. There will be native plants and vegetation going in here,” said Robert Ashton, president and CEO of Save Oceanside Sand.

Ashton said restoring dunes is about more than just preserving the beach.

“A healthy beach and habitat like this is important for the health of the community,” he said.

Timberlake said northern Oceanside is one of the few areas where enough sand still exists to make dune restoration possible, thanks in part to sand placed on the beach from harbor channel dredging.

“In this area of northern Oceanside, we have sand still because we use the sand from the channel harbor dredging, and we put it on the beach here, but there’s still episodic erosion issues. There’s still chronic erosion happening here in this northern area as well,” she said.

City officials describe the project as a nature-based solution to climate change and sea-level rise. With fencing, posts and eventually native vegetation, Timberlake said the dunes can grow more quickly and provide a buffer between the ocean and developed areas.

“We really need to keep that sand on the beach where it is, when we have it so that we can keep that resilience between our homes, our infrastructure and the ocean itself,” Timberlake said.

Fenced plots have been installed from just north of the Oceanside Pier to Harbor Beach and the San Luis Rey River, part of a broader effort to protect nearly four miles of coastline.

“That’s our objective: to get all our beaches restored in a sustainable and responsible manner that restores the health and the life blood of our city,” Ashton said.

City officials said the fencing used in the pilot project could remain in place for about three years as the dunes develop.

This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication.

A San Diego appeals court on Tuesday upheld the judgment and what amounted to a $1.775 million award to former news anchor Sandra Maas, who sued the company that previously owned KUSI, alleging it violated equal pay laws by paying her significantly less than her co-anchor.

The opinion comes nearly three years after a San Diego Superior Court jury also found for Maas in her whistleblower claim, in which she argued that her contract was not renewed because she pushed back for the pay disparity.

McKinnon Broadcasting Co., which had owned KUSI when Maas worked there, had challenged the verdict on various grounds, “none of which we find persuasive. We affirm the judgment,” reads the opinion issued Tuesday from the 4th District Court of Appeal, Division 1.

Maas’ attorney, Josh Gruenberg, said in an email Tuesday that the appellate court “confirmed that the jury’s findings were supported by substantial evidence and that the process was impartial and sound.” He called the opinion “a true celebration of equal pay rights and of a judicial system that holds firm — even on appeal.”

“Most importantly, it brings long-overdue closure to a grueling chapter in Sandra Maas’s life,” Gruenberg said. “It takes courage to come forward, and even greater courage to withstand the blocks and tackles that followed in this case.”

Attorneys for McKinnon did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

According to arguments and evidence in the 2023 trial, Maas was paid a lower annual salary than male co-anchor Allen Denton during their years anchoring the TV station’s flagship newscast. In 2010, when they first teamed up, she was paid $120,000 annually, and he made $200,000.

When he retired, in 2019, his annual salary was $245,000. Hers was $180,000. That same year, Maas left the station. Maas’ attorney told the jury that when Maas asked for equal compensation, her contract ultimately was not renewed.

Pam Vallero, one of Maas’ attorneys, told the jury in opening statements of the four-week trial that the two anchors had sat “side by side at the same news desk, reading from the same teleprompter, anchoring the same newscast, but paid significantly different by KUSI.” That, she told the jury, “is why we are here.”

The attorney for KUSI told the jury during opening statements that Maas had been “paid fairly for her work in light of her experience, in light of her work ethic, attitude and overall value.”

Maas’ counsel argued that she had worked in broadcast television for 33 years, compared to Denton’s 37 years on TV. KUSI’s attorney said Denton had 48 years of experience, counting 11 years in radio before jumping to TV.

Maas, who worked at CBS 8 in San Diego in the 1990s, started at KUSI as a morning anchor in 2004. Denton, who had worked in the Bay Area, joined KUSI in 2010.

Aside from upholding the verdict, the appeals court on Tuesday also upheld the award of more than $2.3 million for Maas’ attorneys fees.