Institutional buyers lose the off-market route into Oregon HOAs
Institutional buyers lose the off-market route into Oregon HOAs
2026-09-15 · Oregon · Legislation
Oregon has closed the off-market route that large investors used to buy single-family homes, and the housing stock it protects is exactly the stock that sits inside homeowners associations. House Bill 4128 was signed March 31, 2026 as chapter 64, Oregon Laws 2026, and takes effect January 1, 2027.1
Who it covers
An “institutional real estate investor” is an entity, subsidiary or combined group that, directly or indirectly:
“(a) Owns 2,500 or more single-family residences or has an ownership interest of at least 10 percent in 2,500 or more single-family residences; (b) Serves as a fiduciary of funds pooled from investors; and (c) Manages $1 billion or more in net value or assets on any day in the current tax year, adjusted annually for inflation since 2026…”2
All three limbs, conjunctively. This is aimed at a small number of very large operators, not at ordinary landlords.
Excluded from “covered entity”: 501(c)(3) nonprofits; a creditor or loan servicer acquiring in satisfaction of secured debt; an entity taking an institutional-investor loan secured by a publicly available mortgage type; and “A community land trust, land bank, public housing authority or resident-owned cooperative.”
The prohibition
“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a covered entity may not purchase, acquire or offer to purchase or acquire fee title to a single-family residence unless the residence…” falls into one of seven exceptions — the operative one being:
“(g) Has been publicly listed for sale for at least 90 consecutive days immediately preceding the covered entity first offering or accepting an offer to purchase or acquire any interest in the single-family residence.”
The other exceptions cover principal residences of owners of the entity, government-funded property, tenant-occupied property, purpose-built rentals never occupied by anyone but a tenant, property not publicly listed at the time of the offer, and acquisitions through foreclosure, forfeiture, deed in lieu or enforcement of a judgment or lien.
The carve-out that reaches associations
“'Single-family residence' means a residence designed for occupation by a single family unit, not including any type of middle housing as defined in ORS 197A.420.”
Duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, cottage clusters and townhouses are not protected. Detached single-family homes are.
The disclosure machinery
A covered entity relying on the 90-day exception must give the seller or the seller's agent a completed and notarised disclosure form, and within three days send a copy to the Department of Justice. The Department must publicly post the forms on its website and retain the posting for at least five years.
The bill prints the statutory form, headed “DISCLOSURE OF STATUS AS COVERED ENTITY SUBJECT TO 90-DAY WAITING PERIOD,” signed under penalty of perjury with a notarial certificate.
That public register is the part with practical value for an association. From 2027, there will be a searchable state record of institutional acquisitions of Oregon single-family homes, and a board that wants to know who is buying into its community will be able to look.
Enforcement
The Attorney General may sue in Marion County Circuit Court or the county of the violation, may serve investigative demands under ORS 646.622 and 646.626, and may impose civil penalties under ORS 183.745 of up to $250,000 for a purchase in violation of the prohibition and up to $10,000 for failure to file a required form. Costs and attorney fees are available, and recoveries go to the Department of Justice Protection and Education Revolving Account.
There is no new private right of action. An association that believes a covered entity has bought into its community in breach cannot sue on the statute; it can report.
What this changes for an Oregon association
Three things, over time rather than immediately.
The composition of the membership. Detached single-family housing in planned communities is precisely the product institutional buyers have targeted, and off-market portfolio acquisition is how they have done it at scale. A 90-day public listing requirement puts every such purchase into the retail market first, where individual buyers can compete.
An uneven effect between community types. Because middle housing is carved out, an Oregon association of townhouses or cottage clusters gets no protection, while an association of detached homes across the street does. Communities that have added middle housing under Oregon's density laws will contain both categories.
Nothing about who may enforce covenants. The statute regulates acquisition, not membership or governance. A covered entity that lawfully buys under one of the exceptions is an owner with full rights. And note that the concentration limits an association might care about come from a different source entirely: conventional project standards make a condominium ineligible where a single entity owns more than 20 percent of units in a project of 21 or more units. Our Oregon resale and disclosure page covers the financing side.
The detail that reveals the drafting
Resident-owned cooperatives are expressly excluded from “covered entity.” That is a deliberate nod to manufactured-home park conversions, where residents form a cooperative to buy the land under their homes. Oregon has been protecting that route for years, and the exclusion makes sure a statute aimed at Wall Street does not catch it.
The bill passed the House 38–16 on February 19, 2026, the Senate 26–2 on March 2, and the House concurred 38–18 on March 4.
What to watch next
The Department of Justice's public posting, once it begins. A five-year rolling public record of institutional single-family acquisitions in Oregon is a new dataset, and it will answer empirically a question that has until now been argued anecdotally: how much of Oregon's association-governed detached housing is actually being bought by institutions.
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