President Trump announced that he is beginning a campaign to encourage the nation’s homebuilders to create more residences.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump stated, “Before I became President, ‘OPEC’ kept Oil prices high. It wasn’t right for them to do that but, in a different form, is being done again — This time by the Big Homebuilders of our Nation. They’re my friends, and they’re very important to the SUCCESS of our Country, but now, they can get Financing, and they have to start building Homes. They’re sitting on 2 Million empty lots, A RECORD. I’m asking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get Big Homebuilders going and, by so doing, help restore the American Dream!”
While neither Fannie Mae nor Freddie Mac have been traditionally tasked with lobbying the homebuilder industry regarding production, their regulator Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is the scion of PulteGroup, a prominent home construction company. After the president’s post, Pulte took to his personal X account to declare, “To help restore the American Dream, Fannie and Freddie will be meeting with each of the Big Builders, each company individually, to assess building more, growth, partnership, and more!”
The National Association of Home Builders, the industry’s main trade organization, did not publicly comment on Trump’s comments.
These new homes need to be affordable for first time homebuyers or people who are downsizing. New construction, as in my area, start at $375,000 with most of these homes in the $450,000 and up price range. I have been a Realtor for over 18 years and have seen these markets evaporate due to high home prices and high interest rates. They are completely unaffordable.
While we applaud President Trump’s initiative, one of the real culprits holding back housing are local municipal rules and regulations. They increase the cost of building lots to address excessive requirements that add little value. In addition, municipalities shove costs onto developers that benefit the entire community, rather than collecting taxes from the existing constituents to address deficiencies that they foist onto land developers. In addition, water and sewer authorities have followed this same technique.
Zoning is counterproductive with unrealistic limitations on density where land opportunities are scarce, causing wasteful use of limited land properly zoned for residential use. The list is longer than this of abuses of power that raise the price of finished lots substantially, pushing finished product cost even higher and further out of the reach of younger people looking to start the American Dream of home ownership.
In our locale requests for higher density are met with comments like “we don’t want them kind of people coming to our community.” I am not sure of the definition of “them kind”, but what I do know is that young service providers can’t afford new homes, the likes of nurses, EMTs, police and basic middle incomers with decent jobs.
Totally agree, William Murray. Very well put. Same here in Hawaii but worse!
Joy Dillon
RB-24224 Realtor for 21 years
Very accurate.
spot on!
I applaud the effort. There are many things wrong with how the cost to build in America, especially in the more densely populated areas, has skyrocketed.
The imposed “impact fees” by governing agencies, along with onerous labor union rules, which results in a labor shortage, has made building for the smaller builder near impossible.
build for who we are sending 10 million imigrants out of the coutry
“Immigrants” come here legally.
The news we’re hearing is that the current market in most metropolitan cities across the country reflects an over-supply of inventory of homes right now. I’m not opposed to this idea of builders bringing an affordable home to Americans- just the timing of it. So, let’s slow-roll this project!
I don’t know what metro area you are talking about but in Michigan we don’t have an over-supply of inventory of affordable homes regardless of who wants to buy them.
No over supply of homes here in NY, its a choice of high rents or high mortgage payments.
You need 2 good incomes to be able to afford a home. Most 1st time buyers have mortgage
Payments upwards of 5K a month. Also many of the new homes are spot built, knock down an old home and put a new one in its place.
I totally agree Lisa Allen, well said
Here we go again!!!! 1980’s all over again. Let’s start Ninja, low doc, no doc, stated income loans, and get the appraiser out of the way. It’s the American Dream!!! I love Trump, but no way on this. Supply and demand, not Government interference. Fannie and Freddie, so toxic and corrupt. Who will they blame this time when the house of cards come tumbling down.
1980s? I thought ninja loans was 2007
There were no doc loans in the 80s Greenpoint Bank was the King of No Doc in NY However you needed to put 25% down. When you have skin in the game, much less likely to default
Housing is abused by Local Government Regulations and Rules that make construction nearly twice as much as it has to be. Illegal Immigrants, 10 to 20 million are also competing for housing in a time when the shortage is significant. It is a Federal Crime: 8 US Code S 1325 “Improper entry by alien with a prison sentence of 6 months. A subsequent commission be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years or both”. So deportation is the result of entering illegally and Over-regulation is the cause of lack of both affordable housing and housing in general.
Inventory is low but if housing isn’t affordable, what good does pushing do? Right now I have transactions in limbo because of the shut down. Get this resolved so home buyers can close!!
I feel outnumbered in this response. I have been a broker for 40 yrs., developed a few housing subdivisions in Central Texas. I have said this before in this forum, a lot of you have issues with the regulations, building ordinances etc… I have found that they are a hassle but needed to control development in a way that is good for the city and its taxpayers! A lot of the times the more rules equals better resale values. In Central Texas we are running out of water! But the cities still allow more development without a good water management. Low-cost housing is always an issue, the margins are tight and that’s where Fed., State or City money are needed to help.
Interest rates are still high and so is the housing market. Real Estate agents need to start listing homes at the real value, not covid prices. The market will make a correction or time will catch up with the current prices until then affordability is for the well off folks!
as a homebuilder we could use some semblance of predictability, some ability to look ahead and know what is happening w/ rates, tariffs, regulations, etc. While I believe Trump was the better choice he is coming up on a year and things are more uncertain than anytime in my 20 years of doing this, including the great recession!
I agree with you Nathan, its the unpredictability that makes it tough to quote a price or build a spec.. I also build homes mostly for rental units for my use. Currently building my personal home. I bought most of my appilances when the home was still in framing stage because I thought the tariffs were going to increase the cost. That really has not happen yet but that gets back to the unpredictable tariff’s. Building anything in the last 6 years has been a tough go!
Make Housing Affordable Again
lowering the interest rate could vastly help
No one on either side of this discussion has issued any thoughts on the infrastructure requirements for the additional housing units. All the usual suspects: roads, utilities, power grid. Need to also consider the inevitable increase in the size of the flood plain. All solvable; just a question of who pays for what.