ICYMI: Financial Times Highlights Pappas’s Fight to Hold Private Equity Accountable for Housing Crisis

MANCHESTER, N.H. — In case you missed it, the Financial Times recently highlighted Congressman Chris Pappas’s push to hold private equity and corporate landlords accountable for their role in New Hampshire’s housing crisis.

Pappas is fighting back against Wall Street investors that are buying up housing and manufactured home communities, driving up rents and making it harder for families to stay in their homes. Pappas is spearheading legislation like the Manufactured Housing Community Sustainability Act, which would incentivize manufactured home community owners to sell land to community residents — such as those at the Meadows in Contoocook, which Pappas visited earlier this year — or nonprofits instead of another developer or landlord. This would help more Granite Staters stay in their homes by protecting against excessive rent increases by out-of-state companies. 

In Congress, Pappas cosponsored the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit Act of 2025, the Property Improvement and Manufactured Housing Loan Modernization Act, the Accelerating Home Building Act, and the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act — legislation designed to boost housing construction, expand opportunities for first-time buyers, and reduce barriers to affordable homeownership. This summer, Pappas also joined the bipartisan effort to pass the landmark 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which provides critical funding and cuts red tape to help build more affordable housing.

Meanwhile, John Sununu has spent his career cashing in with corporate special interests, accepting tens of thousands in campaign contributions from private equity executives and working at a lobbying firm with corporate clients that bought up single-family homes.

While Sununu chose Wall Street over Main Street and sold New Hampshire out to corporate special interests, Pappas doesn’t take a dime of corporate PAC money, and is fighting to stand up to Wall Street and put New Hampshire homeowners, renters, and families first.

Read more below. 

Financial Times: US housing crunch puts private equity in midterm campaign crosshairs

By Michael Taffe, 9/27/26

  • Private equity has become an important target on the campaign trail for the US midterms as candidates blame large investors for soaring housing costs.
  • An FT analysis of campaign language in competitive congressional races over the past decade found that negative comments about private equity and corporate landlords have risen sharply in 2026, with their investments frequently being linked to rising prices. In previous election cycles, Wall Street and the banking sector were singled out for driving up the cost of living.
  • Chris Pappas, a moderate Democratic House member who won New Hampshire’s open Senate primary in September, is one of the candidates who is campaigning for stronger guardrails on where and how private capital can be invested.
  • “People are connecting the dots” of changes in ownership leading to higher rents, reduced maintenance and difficulty selling homes, he said.
  • Interest rates on US 30-year mortgages topped 7 per cent for the first time in almost two years this week. Housing affordability is a central issue in the November elections, and institutional investment is blamed by many voters for the soaring prices.
  • More than two dozen candidates in competitive House and Senate races have pledged to restrict purchases or ownership by private equity firms, hedge funds and other institutional investors —more than double the level in any previous cycle.
  • Residents of mobile home parks told Pappas that increased rent and new income requirements imposed after their sites in New Hampshire were acquired by Michigan-based boutique real estate investor Sado Capital made it difficult to remain in place or even to sell their homes.
  • “Their home, which is essentially their life savings, has been eroded in value, and they’re forking over more every month just to be able to continue to live in their community,” he said.
  • Pappas said policymakers must address the “corporate private equity influence” that was making housing less affordable. He has backed legislation that would incentivise owners of manufactured home parks to sell to residents or non-profits rather than private sector landlords.
  • […]

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