MICHAEL BUSLER: Trump Is Making Home Ownership Affordable Again
This week, a slew of media outlets have claimed that the housing industry is getting rocked by President Trump’s new tariffs. But is it really? The reality is that home prices home ownership is coming back into reach…
This week, a slew of media outlets have claimed that the housing industry is getting rocked by President Trump’s new tariffs. But is it really?
The reality is that home prices home ownership is coming back into reach for countless American families. Mortgage rates are down. New home applications are surging. And while liberal pundits wring their hands over Trump’s tariffs, they conveniently ignore the common-sense moves this administration is making to lower costs and boost supply.
Let’s start with the numbers the media buried. As of May 15, 30-year fixed mortgage rates have remained below 7% for 17 straight weeks, and week over week, new mortgage applications continue to increase dramatically.
Without much fanfare, the Trump administration is quietly chipping away at the Biden-era inflationary policies and red tape that helped make housing so unaffordable.
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If they had any humility, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris could have started this process, but they chose not to. Instead of admitting that their policies had adverse consequences for America’s housing market and reversing course, they prioritized protecting the electoral prospects by
property owners instead, washing their hands of the matter.
For example, they routinely blamed them for using rent pricing software to “collude” and “price gouge,” going so far as to sue RealPage, one of the leading rent pricing software companies. Senior Trump campaign staffers called this an obnoxious case of election season-motivated lawfare, and The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board and groups like Americans for Tax Reform criticized the Biden administration for choosing to scapegoat private sector rather than solving the problem.
In sharp contrast, the Trump administration has approached housing policy with the understanding that property owners and private sector should be a partner in achieving housing affordability, and the early results speak for themselves.
The president issued a Federal Housing Administration waiver and a single-family housing waiver to expand developable land and reduce construction costs. He reversed Biden-era policies that had slowed the resale of Housing and Urban Development-owned foreclosed homes, making it faster and easier for those properties to return to the market. And he’s taking real steps to support the manufactured housing industry by delaying crippling new federal regulations the Biden administration imposed.
Even more importantly, Trump’s team is unleashing the power of federally owned land—which comprises nearly 30% of all land in the country—by opening more of it up for development. More supply means lower prices. That’s the kind of decisive, innovative action the private sector needs.
The results speak for themselves. In May, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reported that 34% of builders cut prices in May, up from 29% in April, with an average reduction of 5%. And 61% of builders are offering sales incentives. That’s real price relief for American families.
However, NAHB has unsurprisingly also reported fearing that Trump’s tariffs will increase costs.
Like the mainstream media, NAHB doesn’t seem to get it. The trade association’s addiction for cheap foreign goods is causing it to miss the bigger-picture point — that the tariffs are a short-term tool to lower housing production materials (and the houses themselves) over the long term. They will do so by reducing foreign barriers on American producers.
Trump doesn’t want these tariffs to last forever — just long enough to convince our trading partners to move away from managed trade and towards real free trade, which will quickly boost competition and lower prices.
His strategy is already proving effective. For example, China returned to the negotiating table this month, and the U.S. and China issued a joint statement committing to renewed trade talks, all while lowering overall tariff barriers by 115%. At this rate, the tariffs won’t last long at all.
Is builder sentiment down? Maybe. But it won’t be for long.
For American homebuyers, this spring is finally feeling like a season of hope. The media can spin, the bureaucrats can moan, and the trade groups can lobby, but the facts are clear.
Trump’s housing strategy is working. And for millions of Americans looking for an affordable place to call home, that’s the only story that matters.
Michael Busler is a public policy analyst and a professor of finance at Stockton University in Galloway, New Jersey, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in finance and economics. He has written op-ed columns in major newspapers for more than 35 years.
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