With would-be first-time homebuyers struggling to afford a mortgage and tens of millions of tenants across the country facing high rents, housing affordability is becoming prominent in a U.S. presidential campaign for the first time in decades.
Vice President Kamala Harris has released a series of housing proposals and has consistently mentioned housing on the campaign trail, in advertisements and in the debate with former President Donald Trump. For his part, Trump has linked housing with other parts of his agenda, most prominently his promise to quickly deport millions of immigrants who are in the country illegally.
Harris
The Democratic nominee aims to address affordability from multiple angles. She says that the country’s cost problems stem from a housing shortage and is calling for the construction of 3 million homes over four years beyond existing levels of production. Doing so would increase annual homebuilding by more than 50% from recent averages. Additional supply would satisfy demand and therefore reduce costs under her logic.
Housing production results from a complex mix of private and public factors, including material and labor costs, and land-use regulations that are chiefly governed at the local and state levels. Jenny Schuetz, an economist and senior fellow at Brookings Metro, a Washington-based think tank, said she was skeptical that Harris could achieve her goal.
“The federal government doesn’t really build any homes,” Schuetz said. Still, she said the idea had value both as recognition of a housing shortage and as an aspirational effort. To support construction, Harris is calling for an increase in the tax credit that’s the main driver of low-income housing production nationwide and a $40-billion “innovation fund” to finance alternative models of construction and bolster local supply efforts.
For first-time homebuyers, Harris wants to provide a $25,000 tax credit for down-payment assistance. The campaign estimates this could help more than 4 million households. Some economists have questioned the idea, saying it could further inflate housing prices. Harris’ campaign has asserted it would roll out the tax credit, which would require congressional approval, gradually and in line with the increase in production.
Harris is targeting corporate practices in rental housing. Though large institutional investors own a small percentage of single-family home rentals — just over 3% nationwide, according to a Brookings Institution estimate — the number is larger and increasing in certain markets. Harris wants to curtail the practice. Citing a recent U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit against a major real estate firm alleging collusion in setting prices, Harris is calling for the passage of legislation that would ban property owners from coordinating price, supply and other rental housing information.
Trump
Trump, a real estate developer, has fewer specifics than his opponent in addressing housing affordability. Most significantly, he has tied his plan for mass deportations to housing.
The Republican nominee said his administration would remove 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally by having the National Guard, local police forces in cooperative states and the military go door-to-door in a process that he said recently would be a “bloody story.” The effort would cause widespread disruption to families, including those having a mix of U.S. citizens and those living in the country illegally, and to the economy.
Trump’s campaign has said the reduction in the population would lessen demand for housing and therefore lower costs. Some research has shown that immigration in general — not limited to those living in the country illegally — can increase housing prices and rents in U.S. cities that have been destinations for migrants.
But the picture is more complicated. Migrants living in the country illegally have been more likely to live in overcrowded conditions, meaning their departure would leave fewer units available. Undocumented laborers make up a significant portion of the construction workforce. A recent paper from researchers at the University of Utah and University of Wisconsin found that greater immigration enforcement led to less homebuilding, higher home prices and fewer jobs for domestic construction workers.
Aside from immigration, Trump has called for cutting regulations that make it more difficult to build housing. At the same time, he wants to preserve local zoning regulations that prohibit the construction of affordable housing in areas set aside for single-family homes. On the latter point, Trump has said he would reverse Biden administration efforts to integrate wealthy communities with lower-cost housing, policies that the former president called “ Joe Biden’s sinister plan to abolish the suburbs.” As a landlord in the 1970s, Trump settled a Justice Department lawsuit in New York that accused his family’s company of discriminating against Black tenants.
Trump has pointed to lowering interest rates to help with affordability. To combat inflation in recent years, the Federal Reserve raised rates, which led to a dramatic increase in mortgage costs and a chill on homebuying. Trump’s pledge to bring them down conflicts with the historical independence of the Federal Reserve in rate setting, which is supposed to guard against prioritizing political over economic concerns.
Harris and Trump share one idea for housing affordability, though they’re both light on details: making more federally owned land available for housing development.
Trump’s campaign said that housing affordability worsened during Biden and Harris’ time in office and that the former president would improve the situation.
“He will rein in federal spending, stop the unsustainable invasion of illegal aliens which is driving up housing costs, cut taxes for American families, eliminate costly regulations and free up appropriate portions of federal land for housing,” said Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson, in a statement.
