Guidance for Lawmakers on Investors & New Jersey Homes

KATHARINE L. NELSON

May 2026

CLiME’s Guidance for Lawmakers on Investors and New Jersey Homes responds to the flood of proposed legislation in New Jersey to respond to the growth of institutional investors in single-family homes. This report describes the pending bills in New Jersey and offers expert recommendations on how legislators should understand the combined policy effects of a range of efforts, including bans, opportunity to purchase restrictions, tax strategies, and responses to various harms to renters through tenant-protection laws.

We offer four top level recommendations for New Jersey lawmakers:

1. Create an executive agency tasked with developing the infrastructure necessary to regulate institutional investors in single-family homes in New Jersey.

2. Prioritize a first-look law that mandates a wait period before investors may bid on a home once it goes on the market.

3. Impose limits on property-related tax deductions such as mortgage interest and depreciation to disincentivize investor ownership of single-family homes.

4. Prioritize various tenant protection bills aimed at responding to specific harms renters face from growing dominance of corporate landlords, including rapid rent increases, increased eviction actions, and habitability concerns.

Read the Report below:

Guidance for Lawmakers on Investors and New Jersey Homes