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Wall Street-backed landlords a target for both Trump and Democrats
An aerial view of a housing development in Las Vegas on Aug. 8, 2025.
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Back in 2020, Ashley Maxwell and her husband were looking to buy their first home, near Indianapolis.
“We looked at over 80 homes in probably a span of two months,” she said.
The couple was in a tight spot. They had three kids and were forced to move because their landlord was selling their rental. That pressure made their search all the more frustrating.
“We would pull up to a house, our agent would get out and be like, ‘There’s 10 additional offers, sight unseen, all cash.’ Typically that means it’s an investor,” Maxwell recalled.
The couple, who eventually found a place, was one of many whose path to homeownership was stymied by a nationwide surge of institutional investors, then driven by record-low mortgage rates, snapping up single-family homes to rent out.
It’s an issue that President Trump now aims to take on. In a recent social media post, he said he wants to “ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes,” to help bring down housing costs.
It’s a popular idea, especially among some Democrats. But passing such laws has proved difficult, and economists say the link of investor-owned homes to high prices is not so simple.
A cap on investor rentals just took effect in this city
In Fishers, Ind., a suburb of Indianapolis, Republican Mayor Scott Fadness was taken aback when he saw new data in a housing report compiled by his team that showed the extent of investor landlords in his city.
“We have neighborhoods today that are now creeping up to 35, 38% of the homes have been purchased for investment purposes,” he said.
It got so bad, he recalled, that one of his employees who was house hunting sent letters to homeowners, explaining that they were going to work for the city “and would they please consider allowing them to buy the home” instead of an institutional investor.
To address the problem, Fadness last year proposed capping rentals at 10% per neighborhood to protect local homeownership.
“It’s been a source of generational wealth in our country for a very long time, particularly in the middle class,” he said. “I hate to see that go away.”
It’s also more difficult, he said, to deal with code enforcement and other issues when the property owner is an out-of-state corporation.
Realtor groups opposed a cap, arguing it infringed on private property rights and could deprive sellers of the highest bid, but the City Council backed the plan unanimously. The new law just took effect Jan. 1.
“It was the first time I had proposed an ordinance in our community where outside interests, business interests, came into town and spent money trying to kill the legislation,” Fadness said.
It was a rare win for such a proposal. Cities and states across the U.S. have debated restricting investor homebuyers, yet most measures have failed to pass. One proposal went nowhere in Congress, which Trump has said would need to codify any ban. California Gov. Gavin Newsom joined Trump this month in saying he’s determined to do something.
Economists say large investors are not the biggest factor driving home prices
But housing experts say it’s too easy to blame corporate landlords entirely for skyrocketing prices.
“People see the connection, but they don’t necessarily separate out the cause and effect,” said Laurie Goodman, an economist with the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute.
Prices do go up where investors buy, but she said, “That is part of their strategy,” because the places they choose are already growing. And often, they buy serious fixer-uppers.
“Most of us don’t have the knowledge to do the repairs,” Goodman said. “[Even] if we did, we couldn’t get the financing.”
Nationally, the largest companies own about 3% of the single-family rental market, with larger shares in some places like the Sunbelt. And the institutional buying spree has cooled from its peak in 2022, as higher interest rates have made homes more expensive.
The main driver of rising prices is a housing shortage, Goodman said, and some investors are actually helping to ease that now, by building their own single-family houses to rent.
“The best way to make housing affordable is to simply build more of it — to increase supply,” she said.
The debate continues in Las Vegas
In Las Vegas, Democratic state Sen. Dina Neal still worries that the build-to-rent trend is undercutting people’s shot at homeownership. She pointed to one corporate investor near her district that built an entire neighborhood of houses to rent.
“They didn’t build the whole entire neighborhood to give it up,” she said. “They wanted to make sure they would secure rental income from 200 different families and keep it.”
What’s more, like Fadness in Indiana, Neal worries that investor rentals are priced so high it can become impossible for many people to save up for a down payment. She said her previous next-door neighbor sold to an investor believing she could trade up, but had to rent a place down the street — from a different corporate investor.
Neal has proposed a cap on corporate landlords three times, but Nevada’s Republican governor, Joe Lombardo, has blocked it, most recently last month.
Neal is surprised — and cautious — now that Trump is taking up her cause. “I am trying to figure out how I entered into a universe where I became aligned with a president who is a nemesis to the Democratic Party,” she laughed.
But if Trump’s interest can persuade more Republicans to join the push, she said she’ll take it.
Former president Bill Clinton is scheduled to give deposition Friday to a congressional committee investigating his links to Jeffrey Epstein, one day after Hillary Clinton testified before the committee and called the proceedings “partisan political theatre” and “an insult to the American people”.
During remarks before the House oversight committee, Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, insisted on Thursday that she had never met Epstein.
The former Democratic president, however, flew on Epstein’s private jet several times in the early 2000s but said he never visited his island.
Clinton, who engaged in an extramarital affair while president and has been accused of sexual misconduct by three women, also appears in a photo from the recently released files, in a hot tub with Epstein and a woman whose identity is redacted.
Clinton has denied the sexual misconduct claims and was not charged with any crimes. He also has not been accused of any wrongdoing connected to Epstein.
Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times during the early years of Clinton’s presidency, according to White House visitor records cited in news reports. Clinton said he cut ties with him around 2005, before the disgraced financier, who died from suicide in 2019, pleaded guilty to solicitation of a minor in Florida.
The House committee subpoenaed the Clintons in August. They initially refused to testify but agreed after Republicans threatened to hold them in contempt.
The Clintons asked for their depositions to be held publicly, with the former president stating that to do so behind closed doors would amount to a “kangaroo court”.
“Let’s stop the games + do this the right way: in a public hearing,” Clinton said on X earlier this month.
The committee’s chair, James Comer, did not grant their request, and the proceedings will be conducted behind closed doors with video to be released later.
On Thursday, Hillary Clinton’s proceedings were briefly halted after representative Lauren Boebert leaked an image of Clinton testifying.
During the full day deposition, Clinton said she had no information about Epstein and did not recall ever meeting him.
Before the deposition, Comer said it would be a long interview and that one with Bill Clinton would be “even longer”.
CASE 0:26-cv-00107-PJS-DLM
Doc. 12-1 Filed 02/26/26
Page 5 of 17
and to file a status update by 11:00 am on January 20. ECF No. 5. Respondents never provided a bond hearing and did not release Petitioner until January 21, ECF Nos. 10, 12, after failing to file an update, ECF No. 9. Further, Respondents released Petitioner subject to conditions despite the Court’s release order not providing for conditions. ECF Nos. 5, 12–13.
Abdi W. v. Trump, et al., Case No. 26-CV-00208 (KMM/SGE)
On January 21, 2026, the Court ordered Respondents, within 3 days, to either (a) complete Petitioner’s inspection and examination and file a notice confirming completion, or (b) release Petitioner immediately in Minnesota and confirm the date, time, and location of release. ECF No. 7. No notice was ever filed. The Court emailed counsel on January 27, 2026, at 10:39 am. No response was provided.
Adriana M.Y.M. v. David Easterwood, et al., Case No. 26-CV-213 (JWB/JFD)
On January 24, 2026, the Court ordered immediate release in Minnesota and ordered Respondents to confirm the time, date, and location of release, or anticipated release, within 48 hours. ECF No. 12. Respondent was not released until January 30, and Respondents never disclosed the time of release, instead describing it as “early this morning.” ECF No. 16.
Estefany J.S. v. Bondi, Case No. 26-CV-216 (JWB/SGE)
On January 13, 2026, at 10:59 am, the Court ordered Respondents to file a letter by 4:00 pm confirming Petitioner’s current location. ECF No. 8. After receiving no response, the Court ordered Respondents, at 5:11 pm, to immediately confirm Petitioner’s location and, by noon on January 14, file a memorandum explaining their failure to comply with the initial order. ECF No. 9. Respondents did not file the memorandum, requiring the Court to issue another order. ECF No. 12. On January 15, the Court ordered immediate release in Minnesota and required Respondents to confirm the time, date, and location of release within 48 hours. ECF No. 18. On January 20, having received no confirmation, the Court ordered Respondents to comply immediately. ECF No. 21. Respondents informed the Court that Petitioner was released in Minnesota on January 17, but did not specify the time. ECF No. 22.
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James Hickman holds a photo montage of the late Rev. Jesse Jackson before a public visitation at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago on Thursday.
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CHICAGO — A line of mourners streamed through a Chicago auditorium Thursday to pay final respects to the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. as cross-country memorial services began in the city the late civil rights leader called home.
The protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and two-time presidential candidate will lie in repose for two days at the headquarters of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition before events in Washington, D.C., and South Carolina, where he was born.
Family members wiped away tears as the casket was brought into the stately brick building. Flowers lined the sidewalks where people waiting to enter watched a large screen playing video excerpts of Jackson’s notable speeches. Some raised their fists in solidarity.
The casket with the Rev. Jesse Jackson arrives before a public visitation at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago on Thursday.
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Inside, Jackson’s children, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Rev. Al Sharpton were among those who stood by the open casket to shake hands and hug those coming to view the body of Jackson, dressed in a suit and blue shirt and tie.
“The challenge for us is that we’ve got to make sure that all he lived for was not in vain,” Sharpton told reporters. “Dr. King’s dream and Jesse Jackson’s mission now falls on our shoulders. We’ve got to stand up and keep it going.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton speaks as Jesse Jackson Jr. listens after the public visitation for the Rev. Jesse Jackson at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago on Thursday.
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Jackson died last week at age 84 after battling a rare neurological disorder that affected his mobility and ability to speak in his later years.
Remembrances have already poured in from around the globe, and several U.S. states, including Minnesota, Iowa and North Carolina, are flying flags at half-staff in his honor.
But perhaps nowhere has his death been felt as strongly as in the nation’s third-largest city, where Jackson lived for decades and raised his six children, including a son who is a congressman.
Bouquets have been left outside the family’s Tudor-style home on the city’s South Side for days. Public schools have offered condolences, and city trains have used digital screens to display Jackson’s portrait and his well-known mantra, “I am Somebody!”
People wait to enter the security checkpoint for the public visitation for the Rev. Jesse Jackson at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago on Thursday.
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Nam Y. Huh/AP
His causes, both in the United States and abroad, were countless: Advocating for the poor and underrepresented on issues including voting rights, job opportunities, education and health care. He scored diplomatic victories with world leaders, and through his Rainbow PUSH Coalition, he channeled cries for Black pride and self-determination into corporate boardrooms, pressuring executives to make America a more open and equitable society.
“We honor him, and his hard-earned legacy as a freedom fighter, philosopher, and faithful shepherd of his family and community here in Chicago,” the mayor said in a statement.
Next week, Jackson will lie in honor at the South Carolina Statehouse, followed by public services. According to Rainbow PUSH’s agenda, Gov. Henry McMaster is expected to deliver remarks; however, the governor’s office said Thursday that his participation wasn’t yet confirmed. Jackson spent his childhood and started his activism in South Carolina.
Details on services in Washington have not yet been made public. However, he will not lie in honor at the United States Capitol rotunda after a request for the commemoration was denied by the House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office.
The two weeks of events will wrap up next week with a large celebration of life gathering at a Chicago megachurch and finally, homegoing services at the headquarters of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Family members said the services will be open to all.
“Our family is overwhelmed and overjoyed by the amazing amount of support being offered by common, ordinary people who our father’s life has come into contact with,” his eldest son, Jesse Jackson Jr., said before the services began. “This is a unique opportunity to lay down some of the political rhetoric and to lay down some of the division that deeply divides our country and to reflect upon a man who brought people together.”
The family of the Rev. Jesse Jackson arrives as Yusep Jackson wipes his eyes before public visitation at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago on Thursday.
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Nam Y. Huh/AP
The services included prayers from some of the city’s most well-known religious leaders, including Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich. Mourners of all ages — from toddlers in strollers to elderly people in wheelchairs — came to pay respects.
Video clips of his appearances at news conferences, the campaign trail and even “Sesame Street” also played inside the auditorium.
Claudette Redic, a retiree who lives in Chicago, said her family has respected Jackson, from backing his presidential ambitions to her son getting a scholarship from a program Jackson championed.
“We have generations of support,” she said. “I’m hoping we continue.”
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