Recently, Vice President J.D. Vance appeared on Fox News and made a sweeping claim: a “surge” of illegal immigrants is driving up housing prices and taking homes that “ought by right go to American citizens.” According to Vance, the country has been “flooded” with as many as 30 million undocumented immigrants, which, combined with insufficient new construction, is putting homeownership out of reach for many.  

But this framing misses crucial realities — particularly around who really has access to mortgage credit, and who’s buying (and withholding) inventory. Here’s a grounded rebuttal. 

Access to Home Loans for Undocumented Immigrants Is Extremely Limited 

Contrary to Vance’s rhetoric, undocumented individuals do not have widespread access to conventional mortgage products. Most mortgages require a Social Security Number, documented employment, credit history, and full legal status — major barriers for undocumented households. 

There is a niche: ITIN mortgages, designed for individuals without Social Security Numbers who instead use an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number. But crucially, this market is very small. The Urban Institute estimates that only 5,000 to 6,000 ITIN mortgages originated in 2023. And while it’s technically possible to expand that, researchers estimate that under a more favorable policy and liquidity environment that number could grow to 73,000–88,000 loans annually.  

One of the biggest obstacles? Without a robust secondary market, ITIN loans lack liquidity: government-sponsored entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac largely do not purchase these mortgages. That means fewer lenders are willing to scale, and that constrains how many undocumented families can realistically buy — undermining Vance’s suggestion that undocumented immigrants are “taking houses” en masse. 

 The Bigger Pressure on Housing Supply Comes from Institutional Capital — Not Undocumented Buyers 

Even as immigrants face exclusion from mainstream homebuying, institutional investors are aggressively acquiring large numbers of single-family homes — and this dynamic is reshaping supply more than undocumented demand ever could. 

  • According to the Urban Institute, as of June 2022, institutional investors own about 574,000 single-family homes. That may sound like a lot, but in context of the ~15 million one-unit rental properties in the U.S., it’s only around 3–4% of that market.  
  • Some of the biggest players include Invitation Homes, which owns roughly 84,000 homes in 16 markets.  
  • Another major institutional landlord is Progress Residential (Pretium/Tricon), which as of late 2022 owns about 85,000 homes.  

Although institutional ownership is concentrated in certain regions, its influence is growing. These large capital funds not only buy existing homes, but in some cases operate rent-to-own models. 

What’s Really Driving the Housing Crisis — And What the Policy Response Should Be 

Putting the pieces together, a clearer picture emerges: 

  • Undocumented immigrants have very limited access to mortgage credit. The tiny volume of ITIN loans and the lack of a broad secondary market mean that undocumented households are far from “buying up the housing stock.” 
  • Meanwhile, institutional investors are accumulating significant housing inventory, which reduces the number of starter homes available for purchase and keeps more stock off the owner-occupied market. 
  • The true levers of the housing crisis lie in underbuilding, zoning/regulatory constraints, and financial exclusion, not a simplistic narrative that blames undocumented immigrants for rising costs. 

Rather than feeding political rhetoric that scapegoats a vulnerable population, policymakers need to focus on expanding responsible mortgage access (yes, including for ITIN holders), reforming regulatory barriers, and rethinking how institutional capital interacts with the single-family housing market. That’s how we actually make housing more accessible to the working class.