Senator Frank Sturtevant presented legislation at the Virginia Housing Commission work group on Aug. 19 that would prohibit very large institutional investors from acquiring additional single-family homes and manufactured-home communities in Virginia once certain thresholds are met.

"This legislation very simply seeks to do is to prohibit these massive private equity and hedge funds from purchasing single family homes and mobile home parks in Virginia," Sturtevant said, describing the bill's trigger as a partnership, corporation or REIT with $50,000,000 or more in assets that already controls 50 or more single-family rental properties in Virginia (the manufactured-home-park trigger is 10 or more parks).

Nut graf: The proposal targets a specific class of institutional investors by combining an asset-value threshold with a count of properties already owned in Virginia. Sponsors and legal-aid advocates said the measure is intended to protect homeowners, mobile-home residents and first-time buyers from loss of affordability and neglect; commissioners and industry representatives pressed for clearer data and practical enforcement mechanisms.

Senator Sturtevant and Daniel Rezai of legal-aid and resident groups described national trends. Sturtevant cited a federal study and other analyses showing thousands of single-family rentals in Virginia metro areas are owned by institutional investors. Rezai said manufactured-home-park owners often do not disclose buyer identity at sale and described cases where residents faced prolonged utility outages, lack of onsite management and steep lot-rent increases after purchases.

Commissioners and attendees asked multiple technical questions: how many parks or homes are purchased by large investors in Virginia since 2019; what portion of purchases were already rentals vs. owner-occupied; how unsolicited-offer rules affect resident purchase opportunities; and what enforcement mechanism the bill would use for single-family home purchases. Industry representatives warned the bill could restrict the pool of lawful buyers for mom-and-pop sellers and asked for clearer exclusions for legitimate developers, REITs and resident-owned-community financing.

Ending: Senator Sturtevant said she will refile the bill and work with commission members and stakeholders on language and data; the work group requested additional research on Virginia-specific investor activity and on practical enforcement approaches before the next session.