The American Dream Under Siege

Congress has a chance to stop Wall Street from locking young families out of homeownership.

Bernie Moreno serves as the senior United States Senator from the state of Ohio.

Our nation is facing a crisis that strikes at the heart of the American Dream. That dream is simple: the ability to graduate from high school, get a good job, get married, buy a home, raise a family, and retire with dignity. I think of my father-in-law, who joined U.S. Steel straight out of high school, bought a home in Indiana, and raised a family—all on one salary. The question facing us today is: does that American Dream still exist?

For too many families—teachers in Ohio classrooms, nurses in Cincinnati hospitals, factory workers in Cleveland, or truck drivers hauling goods across our state—the dream is increasingly out of reach. Home prices have skyrocketed, starter homes have vanished, and entire new neighborhoods are being built not for homeowners but for distant corporations to rent out indefinitely.

This is the rise of the single-family build-to-rent industry. Massive Wall Street firms, private equity giants, and institutional investors are constructing whole communities of detached homes not to sell to families, but to hold as permanent rentals.

These aren’t small landlords helping fill a gap; they are corporate landlords turning homes into just another financial asset while denying precious supply of single-family houses to hard-working Americans.

The 2008 foreclosure crisis sparked Wall Street-backed institutional investors’ rush into single-family rentals (SFRs) by snapping up distressed homes at low prices. Since then, their profit-driven renovations have inflated nearby home values—stabilizing markets for corporate gain early on but now severely harming affordability by pricing families out of ownership.

In Ohio, the damage is real and painful. In Columbus, developments are rising as build-to-rent subdivisions. Families who could once afford modest three-bedroom homes now face monthly rents of $2,700 or more—payments that build corporate equity, not their own. In Cincinnati, prime land that should host for-sale starter homes for young families is instead hoovered up in bulk for rental portfolios controlled by out-of-state investors. And in the working-class East Side neighborhoods in my home of Cleveland, institutional and out-of-state investors have snapped up nearly half of all home purchases, turning once-affordable homes into profit machines while jacking up rents, neglecting repairs, and slamming the door on working families.

The trend is clear: the share of new single-family homes built specifically for rent has surged to levels far above historical norms. By crowding out for-sale development, they reduce inventory for first-time buyers, push prices upward, and condemn millions to a lifetime of renting—facing higher rents, endless fees, perpetual instability, and no path to building generational wealth. The median age of a first-time homebuyer is now nearly 40 years old—up from 33 in 2019—in part because corporate interests have pulled up the ladder to ownership.

But this crisis need not be inevitable. President Donald Trump recognized it early. As he said at last month’s State of the Union address, “Homes are for people, not corporations.” That’s why President Trump signed an executive order titled, “Stopping Wall Street from Competing with Main Street Homebuyers,” which directs federal agencies to restrict support for large institutional investors buying single-family homes. He called on Congress to codify and strengthen these protections.

Here in Washington, D.C., highly paid political consultants and so-called “experts” at think tanks have spilled much ink opining on why the GOP is losing support with young voters. Here’s a thought: maybe it’s because young Americans know they can no longer afford to buy homes and start their own families like their parents did?

Let’s review some data. To start with, President Trump’s plan is overwhelmingly popular. A recent poll found that 58% of the country supports this plan, including 74% of Republicans and 58% of Independents. But that’s not all. Poll after poll has found that President Trump is addressing a top priority for younger Americans: 67% of Gen-Z voters struggle to cover their housing costs, 74% of younger Americans say the cost of housing has reached a crisis level, and 73% of Americans blame large investors for the lack of affordable housing. The Republican Party would be foolish to bury our heads in the sand on this issue.

President Trump proved that by breaking with decades of stale, establishment-driven orthodoxy, he could build an unbeatable coalition, one made up of voters who have for decades abandoned the GOP—from black men to younger voters to Hispanics. The question now is this: will congressional Republicans listen to the American people and do what it takes to sustain that coalition?

With the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing reform package that includes critical provisions to limit large institutional investors from dominating the single-family market, we have a chance to deliver on what we promised to these voters. The bill just passed in the Senate by an 89-10 margin.

By building on the president’s executive actions—curbing their access to federal financing and preventing them from crowding out individual buyers—we’re putting families first, increasing paths to ownership, and ensuring more new homes are built for sale, not for endless corporate rental portfolios.

The American Dream isn’t dead, but it’s under siege. Congress now has a chance to defend it by making clear that homes are for families, not corporate rental portfolios.