Sen. Rosen proposes bill to go after house price gouging

(The Center Square) - U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nevada, introduced a bill this week to address price gouging in the real estate market.

If the Housing Oversight and Mitigating Exploitation Act becomes law, it would make it illegal to rent or sell a dwelling unit for an unreasonable price during an affordable housing crisis.

Additionally, this bill would require the U.S. housing and urban development secretary to conduct nationwide reviews of purchases to investigate whether market manipulation is occurring in specific housing markets.

The secretary would also need to collect data on housing purchases from corporate investors to see if market manipulation is occurring, the bill said.

If an institutional investor purchases over 5% of single-family housing units in a particular market throughout a three-year period or more than 25% of these units in a specific area, HUD would be required to investigate the investor for price gouging and unfair investment practices.

Furthermore, this bill would allow the Federal Trade Commission, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection and the HUD secretary to review data on practices that block rental housing applicants and tenants from obtaining or maintaining dwelling units.

The HOME Act would also minimize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s investments in organizations that have been found to have violated renter protections or raised rent prices exponentially.

On top of all this, Rosen’s bill would mandate that the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission review anti-competitive behavior practices in American residential housing markets.

Nevada families “are being squeezed by the rising costs of housing, and we know part of the problem is corporate investors who buy up homes and drive up prices," Rosen said.

“I’m introducing this bill to crack down on corporate price gouging in the housing market and lower costs for Nevadans,” she said. “Every Nevadan deserves an affordable place to call home, and I’m committed to doing everything I can to lower costs and give Nevadans more breathing room.”

Rosen introduced this bill in 2024, but it never reached the Senate floor for a vote.

Since 2020, housing costs in Nevada have increased. In January 2020, the average cost of a home in Nevada was $311,175. As of July 2025, the price has risen to $452,606, according to Zillow. This represents an increase of over 45% during this time span.

As an area, the Las Vegas Valley has been a region where home investors have acquired a significant amount of property. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, since 2000, home investors have bought an estimated 131,710 homes in the valley.

Moreover, the Review-Journal reported that from the second quarter of 2023 to the second quarter of 2024, the Las Vegas Valley saw home investor purchases increase by 27%, which was the highest in the country during this time span.

The news outlet also reported on a 2023 study conducted by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which showed that corporate investors own 14% of all single-family homes in the Las Vegas Valley and 25% of them in North Las Vegas.

In Clark County, Nevada’s biggest county by population, a New York-based hedge fund called Pretium Partners is the largest single-family homeowner in the county, according to the Review-Journal.

Across the country, real estate investors bought almost 27% of homes in the first three months of 2025, CBS News reported.