Decision 2024: Where US Presidential Candidates Stand on Housing Issues

With home prices and mortgage rates rising in recent years, housing affordability has been one of the hot-button issues in the lead-up to this year’s presidential election.

While a president can’t unilaterally reshape the nation’s housing market — and whoever wins is likely to face difficulties passing their agenda in Congress — their housing policies can have a major influence.

Read on to learn more about what both candidates — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump — are saying about housing during this election cycle and how they could impact the nation’s housing market should they be elected in November.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ housing policy proposals

Though lacking some specifics, Harris has put forward a substantive housing agenda. Her campaign has highlighted three key aspects of housing policy that she hopes to enact.

Broadly, these policies aim to lower housing costs while increasing housing supply. They are:

Build 3 million housing units over the next 4 years

• While estimates vary on how many homes the U.S. is short, economists and housing experts generally agree the country doesn’t have enough housing supply to satisfy demand. This puts upward pressure on prices while limiting options for buying or renting a home.
• Depending on where they’re built, an additional 3 million units on top of what’s already being/will be built could make a notable difference in the nation’s fight against inadequate supply. That said, the Harris campaign has offered no specifics on where these homes would be built, and it’s not clear whether these 3 million units would be in addition to construction already poised to take place.
• As part of the effort to build more homes, the Harris administration will “propose the first-ever tax incentive for homebuilders who build starter homes sold to first-time homebuyers.” Details of this tax incentive are unclear, but it could help builders more easily tackle the costs associated with new construction while encouraging them to work with first-time buyers who may not have as much money as those with more experience in the housing market.
• A Harris administration would aim to expand tax incentives for businesses that build affordable rental housing. The specifics regarding this aren’t known, but the current Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) gives state and local tax credit-allocating agencies a budget of about $10 billion a year that they can use to issue tax credits for the “acquisition, rehabilitation or new construction of rental housing targeted to lower-income households.”
• In addition to tax incentives, a Harris administration would propose a federal “innovative housing construction” fund. The $40 billion fund would attempt to help local governments solve issues standing in the way of home construction, support “innovative methods of construction financing” and aid the design and construction of affordable “housing solutions.” Specifics on how these funds would be approved or dispersed are unclear, though a less generous version of this proposal was included in the Biden administration’s fiscal-year 2025 budget.
• The administration proposes additional steps to facilitate new construction such as allowing development on certain federal lands and streamlining or reducing bureaucratic slowdowns and regulations. The specifics on what they might do away with or what lands they may allow development on aren’t clear.

Lower rents by imposing and enforcing stricter regulations on large corporate landlords

• A Harris administration would ask Congress to pass two laws — the Stop Predatory Investing Act and the Preventing the Algorithmic Facilitation of Rental Housing Cartels Act.
• The Stop Predatory Investing Act would deny interest and depreciation tax deductions for taxpayers who own 50 or more single-family properties.
• In simple terms, the Preventing the Algorithmic Facilitation of Rental Housing Cartels Act aims to make it illegal for landlords to use rent price data shared with them by third parties to help them increase rents.
• These acts could help reduce the number of large corporate landlords in the U.S., increase competition among landlords and potentially help push down rent prices. Other proposals mentioned by the Harris campaign — such as increasing rental assistance to some Americans — could further increase rental affordability. Given the divided nature of Congress, passing any legislation may be an uphill battle for a Harris presidency.

Give first-time homebuyers up to $25,000 to put toward a down payment on a home

• According to the Harris campaign, the new administration would “provide working families who have paid their rent on time for two years and are buying their first home up to $25,000 in down payment assistance.” While the campaign doesn’t specify the form in which the assistance would come, similar proposals tend to allocate the aid as a grant.
• The proposal is similar to one made by the Biden administration and a bill introduced in the Senate called the Downpayment Toward Equity Act of 2024. That said, the Harris proposal is more generous than either of these. The Downpayment Toward Equity Act of 2024 caps assistance at $20,000 or 10% of a home’s purchase price. (The maximum may increase for buyers who are socially or economically disadvantaged or in high-cost areas.) The Biden administration plan would have offered assistance to a smaller number of first-generation homebuyers whose parents didn’t/don’t own homes, instead of the larger number of first-time homebuyers a Harris administration would target.
• Down payment assistance programs often face pushback from detractors who argue that subsiding buyers will only increase demand and drive up home prices — especially if assistance doesn’t come with an increase in housing supply. Some evidence suggests that these fears are at least partially warranted. Other research, however, indicates that down payment assistance programs can help increase homeownership rates, especially among less financially well-off buyers.
• Regardless of the specific form this plan takes, it would likely need to be passed by Congress and signed into law. As mentioned, passing legislation may be easier said than done depending on Congress’ makeup.

How do Vice President Kamala Harris’ housing policy proposals stack up?

Overall, despite the vagueness of some of her proposals, Harris’ housing plan offers a solid start for addressing many of the housing-related challenges plaguing the nation. Implementing many of these proposals, though, would be an uphill battle, as most would need approval from a Congress that’s often anything but productive. Further, there are pitfalls and controversies with each proposal.

Consider the following:

• While building 3 million new units may not be enough to end the nation’s supply shortage, that amount of new construction would likely help bring down home prices and make it easier for would-be buyers or renters to purchase or rent a home. Unfortunately, lower prices probably aren’t going to be met with open arms by many current homeowners who appreciate it when their property values appreciate. Her administration is also likely to run into headwinds navigating local zoning laws and regulations that stand in the way of new construction.
• A potential Harris administration would need to tread carefully while pushing for homes to be built. Fewer regulations, along with more tax incentives and grants to help builders offset costs and construct homes more efficiently and easily, aren’t necessarily problematic in concept, but incentives and grants can be abused. In that same vein, some regulations are extraordinarily important. After all, zoning laws and building codes help ensure that areas remain safe and habitable.
• Speaking of regulations, tighter rules imposed on large landlords and property investors could help prevent some arbitrarily large rent hikes or otherwise create more competition among landlords. However, passing the Stop Predatory Investing Act or the Preventing the Algorithmic Facilitation of Rental Housing Cartels Act isn’t likely to reshape the nation’s rental markets or cause rents to plummet.
• Even if it’s probably more eye-catching to most people than reforming zoning laws or regulating large landlords, the $25,000 down payment assistance for first-time buyers program is perhaps the most controversial aspect of Harris’ housing plan. As mentioned, there’s conflicting research as to whether this proposal would help people buy, or if it would simply result in higher prices.
• Harris has been involved with other proposals in the past that she’s yet to explicitly endorse in her 2024 campaign — such as a Biden administration attempt to limit rent increases — that would likely draw controversy should she attempt to enact them while in office. While the Biden proposal isn’t a rent cap in the traditional sense (it wouldn’t legally prevent landlords from raising rents, it would merely restrict some who increase rents by more than 5% in a given year from accessing certain tax breaks), such an action could remove financial incentives that compel builders to construct new apartment buildings or landlords to perform necessary repairs.

Potential controversies aside, it’s clear that a future Harris administration would have a lot of work to do to make housing more affordable in the U.S. If Harris were to be elected president and could implement her new proposals, as well as continue some of the work she started as a member of the Biden administration — such as working to lower manufactured home prices — housing could become more affordable and easier to access over the coming years.

That said, the road ahead is almost certain to be bumpy, and the nation’s housing woes aren’t going to vanish instantly regardless of who wins in November. On the contrary, meaningful change in the U.S. housing market could potentially take decades of continued effort to enact fully.

Former President Donald Trump’s housing policy proposals

So far, Trump has said little about what he plans to do regarding housing. Though he has a record from his time as president, the few proposals that he or his campaign has mentioned during this election are exceedingly vague. They are:

Reduce immigration

• A Trump campaign spokesperson was quoted via CNBC as saying that a Trump administration will “stop the unsustainable invasion of illegal aliens, which is driving up housing costs.”
• There’s debate on how much immigrants, including those lacking permanent legal status, influence housing costs. Fewer immigrants without legal status could free up some housing supply and may move costs down somewhat. That said, it’s not clear how much additional supply this would create.
• For example, Pew Research Center reported that 70% of households in the U.S. with an “unauthorized immigrant” also contain “lawful immigrants” or people born in the U.S. This means that even if every immigrant without permanent legal status in the U.S. were to be deported, most of the homes in which they were living would remain occupied. What’s more, because immigrants — many of whom lack permanent legal status — make up nearly 26% of workers in the construction industry, mass deportations could cause labor shortages among homebuilders, hamper new construction and drive prices even higher.
• Beyond that, even if housing costs came down, the broader economy would likely slump in the face of mass deportations. Research from New American Economy suggests that large-scale deportations could “deal a Great Recession-like blow to the U.S. economy.” Such a downturn would almost certainly offset any benefits associated with reduced housing costs.

Eliminate regulations

• The Trump campaign’s national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has stated — via The New York Times — that a future Trump administration would “eliminate costly regulations and free up appropriate portions of federal land for housing.” According to the former president, the goal of eliminating these regulations and allowing for more development on federal land is to cut the price of a home in half.
• On the surface, removing certain regulations and opening more land for development are ideas about which the Trump and Harris campaigns seem to agree. However, the specific regulations that both administrations would attempt to remove and the kind of lands they would allow development on are unlikely to align.
• For an example of how a Trump and Harris administration might disagree about regulations, consider that then-President Trump ended the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulation. This regulation required recipients of federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to take actions meant to curb housing discrimination, such as segregation, and was later reinstated by the Biden administration. While there’s no guarantee that a Trump administration may attempt to end this rule again, a Harris administration almost certainly wouldn’t.
• Though estimates vary, research generally indicates that regulations can account for just under 25% of the average home’s sales price. This suggests that even if a future Trump administration were to remove all housing regulations, it still wouldn’t be enough to cut prices in half.
• Fewer regulations and more available space on which to build may reduce homebuilding costs and help increase the housing supply. But without specifics regarding what regulations might end or what land might become available for use, it’s impossible to say just how much of an impact this proposal could have.

Lower mortgage rates

• According to Leavitt — via The New York Times — Trump has a “real plan to defeat inflation, bring down mortgage rates.” This plan has yet to be revealed.
• Lower mortgage rates would help make homebuying more affordable. Snagging a lower rate can not only reduce mortgage payments, but it can potentially save borrowers tens of thousands of dollars over the lifetime of their loan.
• While lower rates would certainly be welcome, it’s worth pointing out that a president doesn’t set mortgage rates, nor do government bodies like the Federal Reserve. Policy choices can help bring down rates but, again, without specifics, it’s unclear how a Trump administration would try to lower mortgage rates.
• In truth, mortgage rates have already come down noticeably in recent months. And regardless of who wins the election in November, there’s a strong chance that they’ll continue to decline as inflation subsides and the broader economy softens.

How do former President Donald Trump’s housing policy proposals stack up?

Overall, Trump’s proposed housing policies are far less fleshed out than his opponent’s. While some ideas, like working to make it easier to build homes, are good in concept, other suggestions show a fundamental lack of understanding of how the housing market functions and what a president can do to change it.

Here are a few reasons why:

• Despite being portrayed as a solution by his campaign, limiting the number of immigrants without permanent legal status in the U.S. isn’t a fix for the bulk of the nation’s housing problems. As mentioned, while fewer immigrants could free up some housing for those who remain in the U.S., the economic fallout from mass deportations would be catastrophic for the nation’s broader economy. There are certain steps that the federal government can and should take to both better house immigrants and enforce current immigration laws, but this doesn’t mean those lacking permanent status are to blame for high housing prices.
• Unnecessary and overly complex regulations can drive up home prices. Of all Trump’s proposals, eliminating some regulations and freeing up more land for development are the most sound. That said, limiting regulations won’t be enough to cut prices in half, and ending some isn’t a cure-all for the problems plaguing the nation’s housing market.
• The president doesn’t set mortgage rates. If elected, Trump probably wouldn’t be able to arbitrarily decide to lower them even if he wanted to. If anything, other policies he’s proposed — like implementing tariffs on raw materials imported from other countries — would be more likely to drive inflation higher and put upward pressure on mortgage rates while making homebuilding more expensive.
• While not explicitly endorsed by Trump’s campaign, proposals that those close to him have made are also likely to exacerbate housing problems, not solve them. For example, a proposal written by Trump’s former HUD secretary, Ben Carson, calls for many HUD programs, such as those designed to help curb housing discrimination and build more housing units, to effectively be gutted. Implementing such proposals would not only make it harder for people — namely members of minority communities — to get access to housing, but it would also drive up prices by further limiting housing supply.

Simply put, what little Trump and his campaign have stated about his housing policies doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Not only are his proposals incredibly vague, but enacting them would likely be difficult. What’s more, many of his proposals, such as mass deportations and implementing large tariffs, are likely to cause more problems than they solve.

Given how little emphasis the Trump campaign has placed on actionable solutions that address the root problems hampering the nation’s housing market, such as a lack of housing supply, the policies that might be enacted during another Trump term would be unlikely to help make housing more accessible and affordable in an appreciable way.