Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has announced President Trump is considering the declaration of a national housing emergency.
Bessent stated in an interview with the Washington Examiner that the declaration could occur as early as this fall, adding that housing affordability will be a major focal point in the Republican Party’s 2026 midterm elections. But while Bessent noted that lower interest rates and making some construction materials from tariffs could help alleviate the challenges facing the housing market, he stopped short of offering specific strategies.
“We’re trying to figure out what we can do, and we don’t want to step into the business of states, counties, and municipal governments,” said Bessent. “I think everything is on the table.”
Housing affordability has not been a primary issue for Trump, both during the 2024 campaign and since his return to the White House – outside of the suggestion of using federal lands for housing development, the administration has offered no detailed plans on how it could directly address elevated housing prices and the evaporation of affordable homeownership opportunities.
It is also unclear why the news of a potential housing emergency declaration was made by the Treasury Secretary instead of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner or Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte.
However Trump or his Cabinet Secretary (pick one, they are all the same diminished world view) states a Housing Emergency, it will not be specifically for new or experienced home buyers. It will be for the likes of Pulte to make more money on the backs of those the billionaires got the Tax gift.
Another soy boy victim crying, the intellectual left without intellect. Low energy IQ response.
Such a thoughtful and intelligent response. Project much?
you need to raise wages so people can afford to buy. Also stop Investors from building apartment buildings with high rents
Stop foreign investors from buying houses.
Real Estate prices went too high on 2021because a flu (Covid) they need now to go back to their real price value. Same with rentals.,
Lowering rates will increase competition and cause some appreciation… also called inflation. Buy now and refi later if the rates drop 2% or more is my advice. Lowering fuel costs for shipping helps. A better immigration policy thats lets “more”… “legal” workers will increase the supply of labor thus help lower labor cost while not lowering american wages disproportionately competing against illegal workers lower wages. Tax incentives and special financing plans to help lower monthly payments and down payments for first time buyers. Of course better job opportunities increasing wages has to happen as well.
If we actually have a housing crisis. (I’m not sure that we do). I think we have a housing affordability issue. Then, make a law that you must be an an American citizen to purchase property in America.
That will do away with foreign investors . It may collapse some segments of the market. But it’s something to consider. Then, stop the adult in private property ownership rights which come with a bundle of rights which were and are being trounced up. The right of Possession. Right of control. Right of enjoyment, right of disposition and the right of exclusion. How many of those were walked over from marxh 2020 forward? Where is CAR and NAR as to defending these bundles or rights?
And. Where are they now as to this stupidity of a fake housing crisis to give developers the right to invade single family residential neighborhoods with Adus and multiple family zoning without due process from the citizens?
This is complete and utter lunancy and yet no one is calling this out to protect the rights of private property owners. Do you not see that this is the inroads to socialism. You own nothing and you are happy? Wake up REAlTORS and demand that your associations take action to protect the rights of private property owners. Without this. Our future looks dim to me.
Carol, I am a realtor and involved in government affairs and the protection of private property rights. Your comment is very contradicting — on the one hand you are advocating to limit property ownership to US citizens, completely ignoring legal residents who have lived in this country for decades and contributed to the economy with businesses etc. That would be government overreach. Also you advocate for restrictions on Multi-family, ADU’s pretty much limiting individual land owners from building a home with an in-law arrangement for their agents parent or disabled child. I do believe some institutional investor and strategic land foreign investor ownership should be monitored but saying who you can or cannot sell to, that would infringe on their right to sell.
How about living frugally like we did when we were saving for our down payment – forget $6 coffees, new cars every 4 years, new phones every time they come out with a new one, streaming services, eating out all the time? Pack your lunch, eat at home, clip coupons, don’t go to every destination wedding you are invited to, or go on fabulous trips and SAVE for your down payment! Shall I go on – I think you get the idea
As a Realtor, I can tell you that there are a lot of families who have never indulged in the luxuries you mention and still cannot afford a home. When housing costs increase faster than wages, there will be affordability issues. Imagine if, rather than giving tax cuts to the super wealthy, the government instead collected the fair share of taxes and used it to provide lower interest mortgages to the working families who teach our children, prepare our food, drive our buses, etc. and cannot afford decent housing.
YES! and let’s build affordable houses using realistic sqft
What about the old 235 program and the old 236 program, they seemed to work really well. that would help out first time home buyers and the 236 would provide more affordable apartment type of housing.
We need “legal” immigrants to work our house building industry. We need aggressive high school and trade school promotions and programs to get new bodies into the construction industry. There is a strong lack of construction workers in many parts of the US. Assumable mortgages could help. Possibly more upgrade manufactured modular homes in their own large communities would help. Some modular homes are extremely hard to recognize as manufactured products. They tend to be cheaper per square foot. I really think we wouldn’t be so obsessed with affordability if we didn’t have a 50% price increase from mid 2019 thru mid 2023. This past insane housing inflation has exponentially made all affordability issues the talk of the town.
Let buyers assume current Low interest Fannie Mae Mortgages a huge boat to affordability
There is not shortage of housing. There are so many on the market for sale right now. It’s the interest on mortgage that is holding back first time home buyers. My home has been o market two different times with no takers. Price is right…decreased 3 x and still no buyers. I understand the market as a licensed realtor.
It’s Jerome Powell who is holding back those who wisht to buy a home. The liberal jerk doesn’t want to give our President a break. He needs to be replaced and new faces to replace unbiased feds. The old codger needs to step down,
The reason lower priced houses are not selling is that people don’t earn enough money. Also the rents are so high that people can’t afford to save. It has nothing to do with lowering interest rates, when I started selling Real Estate over 40 years ago the interest rates were over 16%. People still bought houses, the prices were low. Now greed has taken over and we have too many investors in the market who drive up prices.
Heidi – You are correct! Low interest rates are good for politicians to get votes in the short run, but in the long run they will damage the economy. Look at Japan who kept interest rates very low for many years…..the damage to their economy was significant. Low interest rates attract investors from wall street because: unless they are interested in gambling in the equities market, or getting practically nothing from fixed income investments, real estate is the alternative investment for a safe return on their money. Citizens have to compete with wall street money to buy a home and the prices go up. Very low interest rates would eventually turn U.S. into a rental society where only the wealthy own homes and the rest are tenants.
As a licensed Realtor® you should know the definition of market price is how much an asset can be sold for. A house on market with no takers is not priced right – period. I guarantee there is a price at which it would sell no matter what the interest rates are. You should also understand buyers of any item consider the total cost to own. Interest rates are only one component. The component you as a seller have control of is price. It’s ok if you don’t want to sell for what the market will bear now, but be honest about your role in the situation.
We have had inflation in the real estate market because interest rates were allowed to be too low (subsidized) for too long. The answer is not lowering the interest rates. Prices of homes were allowed to skyrocket due to low interest rates. Buyers could afford more. Economics would have suggested that when interest rates rose from 3% to 6% that hike prices should have dropped dramatically. That still hasn’t happened. But in my opinion that is what is necessary to return to a healthy real estate market. That would keep prices in line with earnings.
In this market , I have leaned to tell my sellers. Get in. Get out. Get done. Prices will be decreasing.
I’ve been a realtor for 22 years. Just this week I had a disabled buyer who really needed the duplex he made an over asking price offer on. Who did it go to? A foreign investor!!! This needs to stop. One Chinese investor in our county owns over 100 properties. What do they contribute to our community? Nothing. Who takes care of the property? A property management company and they do a very poor job of maintaining those properties. That lowers the value of the properties around them. STOP FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN THE US!!
It all comes down to Supply and Demand. The builders have not been able to keep up with the demand of our growing population. With the housing crash in 2008, when builders had too many homes they could not sell, several builders went bankrupt and the survivors struggled mightily to get by. Ever since, they have been very cautious and afraid to build too many homes too quickly.
When Supply is greater than Demand, Prices go down.
When Demand is greater than Supply, Prices go up.
When Supply and Demand are balanced, we have a “normal” market where there are fair Prices and enough Supply for the Demand.
Right now, housing Demand is not as strong because of the high interest rates combined with the explosive home price inflation of 2021-2023. I think most people agree that lowering inerest rates is the first step in the process of obtaining housing affordability. And interest rates are coming down, but when interest rates get low enough, Demand for homes will sky-rocket, enough to overwhelm Supply. As a result, Prices will go up because Supply will be much too low.
Statistically, Supply is short by just over 4-million homes to support our nation’s growing population. This means that if we were to hypothetically wake up tomorrow and suddenly have fair interest rates and fair prices, there would be a shortage of just over 4-million homes to provide the country’s needs.
This is where the builders come in. They need to increase the supply at a much faster pace. When it is easier and/or cheaper to build homes, and enough Demand is there, more homes will be built. While it seems like they’re already building homes everywhere, they are only building enough to meet the reduced demand we currently have because of the high interest rates. Our Household Formation rate is growing much faster than the builders are increasing Supply.
It is a complex process for us to reach housing affordability:
1) Interest Rates must go down. When they do,
2) Prices will increase due to Demand overwhelming Supply. So,
3) The builders must build millions of more homes nationwide to eventually balance Supply with Demand.
4) Short of another economic collapse like we had in 2008, Prices are never going down – at least not in any significant way. Wage Growth is critical, and it is measured and tracked to ensure wages are growing sufficiently. Wage Growth must outpace the Inflation of Prices – the Fed likes to see around 4% Wage Growth compared to 2% Inflation, as over time, this will allow our incomes to become more than sufficient for our needs. Overall, right now, wages are increasing at a good pace; as people, we dont feel it yet because we were hit with 10% inflation in 2021-2023. Our wages are still under water.
We need lower Interest Rates, more homes built, and wages to grow at a good pace for us to get where we all want to be.
*And if anyone is wondering, NO, I am not a homebuilder. I am a home loan mortgage lender who helps families buy homes, both new and pre-existing homes. Have a great week ahead!
Tina, I totally understand where you are coming from. I was a realtor for 15 years, helped people buy and sell their homes and not only that, I also managed their homes as 75 rental properties until the market rebounded from the recession of 2008-10. Just let the marketplace determine how much a home is worth. Let home builders build homes as needed. Right now, the marketplace will determine that. It also doesn’t help that the government. has so many different rules that causes prices to be higher than they should. Keep government out of the process. Just look at what happened when the government gave 3 million dollars of Minnesota taxpayers’ money to “Feed the Children! That was pocketed by foreigners (in this case, Somalians who were sent to prison with help by Attorney General Keith Ellison)
If rates drop to low levels again, it will just propel prices even higher. This is what caused prices to inflate where they’re at today. We actually need to raise rates, let foreclosures happen just like every other historic housing cycle. “What goes up, must come down”. Then, when prices fall, Fannie and Freddie, HUD etc need to limit sales of single family homes to owner occupied buyers only. No more corporate grabs with their endless cash offers pushing out would be homeowners.
Interest rates are killing the market in the southeast.
average home price is 479K in my area at 6.7% that’s over 2500 a month now add taxes and insurance. which can vary by your location for example if you’re in an area effected by hurricanes. The added expenses of the local taxes. A family of 4 needs to make at least 120k a year to make this payment. Add 2 car payments and the rest of it and they are scaping by.
Permits and fees for new builds are a big factor in home prices. In our state, they can exceed $60K before even breaking ground.
Affordable housing is not attainable right now because taxes on homes and insurance rates have become out of control. Landlords cannot lower their rents because of the skyrocketing costs. If anything the government should address this issue and there will be more affordable housing for all. There are many homes not being sold or rented because of this.
THANK YOU. Finally a voice that recognizes there are many components to the costs of homeownership. People blaming it all on interest rates are not being honest. I’m not sure how many areas could afford to reduce property taxes and still provide reasonable public services, but I am certain the insurance industry could survive on less than their 2024 ~$170Billion profit.
It may also b e the time to exclude corporations from buying 1000’s of homes in a low market and keeping them as rentals with ever increasing prices. Homeowners first.Corporate buyers in bulk should be excluded from purchasing homes and receiving extensive write offs. Corporate greed always exists, and many times it is not in the interests of potential buyers. Is nobody studying how corporate ownership jumped into increased rental prices