HART Act Forces Big Investors to Report All Residential Property Purchases to Antitrust Regulators

The Housing Acquisitions Review and Transparency Act, or the HART Act, is a direct response to the growing presence of large institutional investors in the housing market. Simply put, this bill changes the rules for how big players have to report their residential property purchases to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) for antitrust review.

Aggregation: The End of Buying in Bulk Under the Radar

Right now, companies buying up homes often make many smaller purchases that fall below the threshold required for premerger antitrust notification under the Clayton Act. This bill closes that loophole. Section 3 mandates that if an entity buys multiple residential properties within the same calendar year, all those purchases are added up and treated as one single transaction for reporting purposes. You have to file the paperwork the moment your cumulative purchases for the year cross the existing reporting limit.

Think of it this way: If the limit is set at $100 million, a large investment firm can’t buy 150 houses in a year, each costing $900,000, and claim each purchase is too small to report. Under the HART Act, all those individual purchases would be aggregated. The moment that 112th house purchase pushes the total over the $100 million threshold, the firm has to file the antitrust notification. The goal here is to give regulators a better look at whether these massive, cumulative acquisitions are stifling competition in local housing markets.

Investment Property Loses Its Exemption

Perhaps the most significant administrative change is how the bill treats exemptions. Currently, certain types of transactions are automatically exempt from antitrust reporting. Section 3 updates the Clayton Act to remove this standard exemption for purchases involving “residential property” or “investment rental property.” The only exception is if the property is intended only for the personal use of an individual—meaning you, the person, are buying a house to live in. If you’re a company or a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) buying property to rent out, you can no longer rely on that easy exemption.

This means the cost of compliance is going up dramatically for institutional investors. They now face increased administrative burden and regulatory scrutiny every time they try to acquire a significant chunk of the housing stock. For the rest of us, this could mean regulators finally get the data they need to assess whether large-scale corporate landlords are creating monopolies in certain neighborhoods, driving up rents and home prices.

Defining the Playing Field

To make sure everyone is on the same page, Section 2 defines three key terms. “Residential property” covers houses, condos, and apartment buildings—basically, where people live—but specifically excludes hotels or short-term rentals. “Investment rental property” is defined as real estate held strictly for rental income or investment returns. The bill is careful to carve out “place of short-term lodging” (hotels, motels, etc.) from these new reporting requirements, keeping the focus squarely on long-term housing.

Finally, the FTC and the DOJ’s Antitrust Division are required to update the Code of Federal Regulations and create new reporting forms to handle this aggregated information. This gives the agencies broad authority to decide exactly what forms and documents they need to quickly figure out if these large, combined purchases violate antitrust laws. While the intent is transparency, this mandate also means we’re waiting on the regulators to write the fine print, which will determine just how burdensome or effective this new reporting regime turns out to be.