While the Trump administration has focused on severely reducing the federal workforce, a new analysis from Homes.com of the Washington, DC area has not found any great change in housing activity since Donald Trump returned to the White House.
In studying the quantity of activity listings, sold properties and median sales prices, the new analysis has not determined significant changes since the beginning of January. When compared to same period in 2024, the data not only failed to show dramatic changes, but it also viewed a slight increase in listings and asking prices.
The only notable change to occur with the arrival of the Trump administration was an uptick in the listings and buyers for the ultra-luxury real estate markets. During the past month, there have been 13 houses in this area that were priced at $7 million or higher – the figure only covers properties publicly listed on multiple listing services.
Homes.com is a brand of CoStar Group (NASDAQ: CSGP), a provider of commercial real estate information, analytics, and online marketplaces.
This is ridiculous. Of course, there hasn’t been any impact … yet. We’ll see how it looks in a couple of months after 100s of families are facing unforeseen financial devastation.
Except the FAKE news tried to sell this as a fact. Per the norm TDS.
Unforeseen? Aren’t they all? Should’ve saved; should’ve gotten a real job…lots of should’ves. No sympathy. This happens all the time in the real world.
Agreed, there’s no notice most of the time and certainly not always 8 MONTHS of severance.
What Julia said.
So the people against the downsizing of government and reining in the spending of government, you honestly want bigger government with more employees?? Why? what is the purpose? If it can be streamlined and done with less people? It’s because you don’t want any of the federal employees to lose their jobs? I can’t seem to wrap my mind around the opposition to this
Agree, it was ok when Clinton slashed the government work force, but Dems are critical of any cost cutting measures by the Trump Administration. These people are serious blinders.
There are definitely too many Realtors. Perhaps capping commissions at 1% would save buyers and sellers a lot of money while unemployed Realtors could pick the crops in the fields replacing deported migrant workers. What do you think DOGE? As we know, Realtors have saved all their earnings so they won’t be impacted by the loss of commissions.
People in every party say that they want government efficiency, for the simple reason that OUR tax dollars are being used, but most people have little voice in where their tax money goes.
It would be interesting to see how people would allot their tax money IF each taxpayer could make that choice as to where their own tax dollars are spent. My guess is that the Defense Department (DOD) would take a big hit because that is the #1 money waster of any department, and even the defense department complains that citizens (employees, employers, and corporations) are supporting politicians who lobby for more military spending that is NOT needed and not used by the military. Abram tanks and defective planes have been built and sit idle in huge storage zones, and munitions are dumped into landfills and into the oceans because there is too much given to the military. Defense contractors have long been known to grossly over charge for their products. Talk to anyone who has worked in the military or defense industries and they will likely admit to this waste.
Yet, Trump and the GOP are expanding military spending, while saying that they want to cut waste?? Wasteful defense spending has been a problem under every political party. The U.S. spends more on defense than the next 9 countries combined!
If Trump wants to target waste, then challenge the defense contractors and cut their funding, but that won’t happen because Musk has many lucrative contracts with the DOD.
Trump’s 1st term added 2 Trillion to the Federal debt, mostly due to the huge tax cuts he gave that mostly benefited Billionaires, while average and low income got a tiny, tiny benefit but a much higher national debt.
Those tax cuts were supposed to expire this year.
Trump’s 2nd term is proposing a permanent extension of that tax cut, which will add a further 4 to 4.5 Trillion to the national debt, again benefitting mostly Billionaires.
The cuts Trump is making will NOT offset the rising debt due to this tax cut. But those tax cuts will hurt the most vulnerable, such as people with disabilities who need Medicare and other support services. Relatives who care for disabled people often do not have the time to obtain full time work or good paying jobs because much of their time is caring for disabled relatives. Thus, their incomes often are too low, and they sometimes need a helping hand.
I’m a person who believes that helping those in need is a good use of taxpayer dollars, a safety net that many may need, even if they believe themselves to be immune from sudden problems (stroke, car accident, job loss, etc). Once a crisis hits you and your family (or friends), the Sh_t gets real, including how crushing and expensive the responsibilities can be, sometimes for the rest of your life.
Yes, there are some welfare scammers out there who need to be cut, but that is pretty rare. Most welfare recipients have full time jobs (that are low paying).
I’ve long proposed that the U.S. bring back the Work Projects Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC), two 1930’s depression era programs that were amazing because the jobs were for much needed projects nationwide; the jobs trained new people and retained essential skill sets, and those jobs paid decent wages and kept people off welfare, taxes were paid out of those incomes, successful infrastructure projects were completed, and experienced workers from those programs were then able to obtain jobs outside of those programs, and the 1930’s depression impacts were greatly reduced due to the WPA and CCC.
We could make the WPA and the CCC permanent agencies that could provide essential jobs to those who cannot find a job and would, otherwise, go on welfare (or resort to crime or fall into poverty or jail, or both).
The world needs more trees planted, soils restored, wildlands & wetlands restored, trash picked up, pollution cleaned up, and infrastructure repaired. Many of these jobs are fairly easy to learn and are needed and have long term benefits for society.
Other jobs require more skill sets, but a WPA and CCC could, once again, preserve existing skill sets and train up new people to retain those skill sets. That’s tax dollars well spent.
IF Trump & Musk had taken the time to investigate how various agencies are spending money, they would have found only some waste, and they would have realized that a lot of the money in these smaller agencies is well spent for research and jobs that people around the nation want and need.
USAID (whether you support them or not), was created in the early 1960’s and supported by both political parties, until now. The annual budget was pre-approved by Congress at the inception of USAID (to avoid political football games) and the USAID budget was capped at $40 billion a year.
The National budget is now about 6.5 Trillion, so $40 Billion USAID budget (cap) is very small, just 6/10ths of 1% of the total annual Federal budget, and sometimes the entire $40 million is NOT spent, so more like 1/2 of 1%.
So why would Trump/Musk target such a tiny agency and a tiny budget IF they really wanted to cut waste?
Trump’s perky blond press secretary waved around a piece of paper (but did not reveal the evidence or details) that she claimed showed that Musk had found $57,000 in wasteful spending at USAID. Oh my God! That’s terrible! (or is it?)
Okay, I’ll take the bait to expose this silly claim. Even IF that $57,000 was all wasteful spending, that amounts to only 0.000001425 decimal = to 0.0001425% of the total USAID budget.
To wrap your head around how small that is, compare it to an annual budget $1 million x 0.000001425 decimal and you get a NOT so alarming $1.43 of wasted spending, just ONE Dollar and 43 cents wasted out of a $1 million dollar budget!
So What!
That’s dramatically less than the pocket change that falls into the couches of people’s homes, and way less than the wasted coffee thrown out at a typical company.
No auditor (not even the IRS) would shut down a company for “wasting” a miniscule $1.43 out of a $1 million dollar budget. NOPE! That company would get an award for efficiency!
Furthermore, that $57,000 was “deemed” wasted because Trump/Musk said it went to climate initiatives, but that could mean the money was spent for more efficient energy or irrigation, less damaging farming practices (like no till farming), or erosion control (like cover crops). NO one explained the details of that $57,000 (or $1.43 equivalent). Maybe it was well spent.
The devil is in the LACK of details and the peddling of misinformation.
Trump/Musk have targeting the agencies that have the lowest budgets of any of the discretionary budget items, rather than targeting the huge budgets and giant wasteful agencies like the Defense Department.
Removing employees from Federal agencies has resulted in many disruptions to services that people want.
Many of these cuts have been to probationary employees who are doing good work and are there to be trained to replace retiring people. But some of those “probationary” people who were fired are actually long time employees who had been promoted into new jobs and were described as “probationary” in those new job positions, so the punishment was to get promoted for doing a good job… and then fired?
Various parks jobs have been cut, probationary people, but those jobs are often exactly what people need, such as janitorial and service related jobs at national parks. I don’t know about you, but I like clean toilets at national parks, and I want the outhouse tanks pumped out rather than overflowing with excrement, and I want the trash dumpsters emptied, and I want someone checking people in and out of campsites in an efficient way and making sure that visitors don’t trash the place or harass wildlife or trample into areas that are off limits to protect the natural beauty.
But, hey, that’s just me wanting our National Parks to be places where people can visit a pretty and well-maintained scenic wonder, rather than having an unsupervised park with very limited staff and thugs and drug dealers roaming around without anyone to stop them, and trash and poo building up, and wildfires spreading as idiots light the place on fire, much like Trump and Musk are doing to our agencies.
Many of the “claimed” cuts and “savings” that Trump/Musk have boasted about is totally fake. Many of the grants that have been “cut” are funds that have already been spent! The money was gone a long time ago, and cutting those “grants” means zero in terms of cutting the spending. It’s another example of the fake accounting that Trump and the Muskrat team are doing.
Musk came to the U.S. as an immigrant who over-stayed his visa and was, therefore, an illegal immigrant for quite a while.
He has popped out a string of babies (13 that we know of) and wants them to be deemed U.S. citizens (aka anchor babies), despite Musk being a prior illegal alien who knowingly violated U.S. immigration laws.
Musk’s herd of many wives and their many children live in the U.S. and receive “the child tax credit” for this growing brood, so Musk is really sucking up taxpayer dollars, despite him NOT needing that child welfare subsidy. He is creating a “compound” in Texas for his wives and kids, and I’m sure he delights in feeling like a polygamist and seeing his spawn increase in numbers on the public dole of the child tax credit.
Trump’s wife, Melania, did the same thing. She also illegally stayed in the U.S. on an expired visa and popped out an anchor baby, also wanting him to be considered a U.S. citizen, despite her prior illegal immigrations status.
So, yes, I agree with Musk that he should deport himself and all his 13 children, and Trump should deport Melania and her anchor child. It would save everyone a lot of grief and the rampant hypocrisy, and it would be a long term savings by removing the child credit welfare benefit for so many children of the Billionaires.
Trump & Musk have rattled their sabers against Social Security and Medicare, claiming that they are wasteful and full of entitlements.
But keep in mind that the funds in these agencies are taxes PAID by all of us who work and paid into those safety nets. About 13% of worker compensation is a tax that goes into SS and Medicare.
These agencies are separated as agencies that are “mandated” to collect those taxes and pay out the promised benefits that YOU, as a worker, paid into. In other words, SS and Medicare benefits are EARNED Entitlements, not welfare.
Not even Trump/Musk can just “cut” SS or Medicare because of the mandated benefits that must be paid out. SS does loan its funds to the Treasury, but the loaned money earns interest, and that’s a good thing so that SS gets more money and keeps up with inflation. Any loaned money and the interest are mandated by law to be paid back to SS, which is why it is NOT discretionary spending.
Before SS and Medicare, elderly people were starving at alarming rates, and their medical care was often too expensive, so they died early, suffered a lot, and their friends and relatives suffered by taking care of them because there were NO programs around to plan for retired people and their needs. SS and Medicare have been a life saver, not just for retired people, but also for family and friends who are not tasked with excessive care duties and do not need to fund their retired relatives. That’s a win for everyone!
The overhead costs for SS and Medicare are very low, amazingly low. SS has an overhead (Administrative) cost of only 0.005 = 0.5% = a tiny 1/2 of 1%, and NO private company can match that.
So when you hear the GOP pushing to privatize SS and Medicare, if that happens, then be prepared to suck up an overhead cost of at least 15% (for profit taking) which is 30x higher via private management costs than the Federal managed SS costs now.
The Federal government has waste, but SS is NOT one of them.
I doubt that Medicare has much waste, but, IF it does, then contact the expert on Medicare Fraud and waste, the man whose company was charged in the largest Medicare fraud case in U.S. history (1.7 Billion in fraud), and that man is…wait for it…..
Rick Scott, a current Republican Senator from Florida, who was once the Governor but got promoted to Senator by voters in that state who seem to adore FRAUD perpetrated on the U.S. taxpayer!
Nothing happened to Rick Scott, who took “the fifth” under oath and deposition to protect himself from the crimes his own company committed. So much for Republican claims of wanting to stop fraud and waste. They commit these crimes and walk away with the profits, and they serve no jail time. The government did collect the fines, but the perpetrators walked free with their personal profits well bloated for their crimes.