Housing affordability is among the critical issues for voters ahead of the pivotal presidential election, as renters and homeowners are feeling squeezed by high prices.
Vice President Harris and former President Trump have offered competing proposals to tackle housing costs.
“Getting mass attention and focus around what has been a brewing crisis for many years has finally come to roost, and so we just don’t have enough supply of housing in this country to house people today and to house people tomorrow,” Sharon Wilson Géno is the president of National Multifamily Housing Council, said in a recent interview, calling voters’ increased focus on the issue “monumental.”
Polling has shown that the cost of housing is becoming an increasingly important issue for voters leading up to the election, with a recent survey from the Pew Research Center showing that 69 percent of voters said they are “very concerned” about home prices. That’s an 8 percent jump from the figure recorded in April 2023.
Recent data have shown swing-state voters have experienced an outsized housing cost burden. Housing prices in some counties in Sun Belt battleground states have doubled over the last five years, a Washington Post analysis found, for example.
A survey released by Redfin earlier this month also found that renters were almost twice as likely as homeowners to see housing affordability as one of their top three issues when it comes to their vote for president.
That survey found that Harris supporters were more likely than Trump supporters to rank housing affordability as a top issue — a highlight the report noted was “likely because Democrats are more likely to live in expensive coastal areas.”
Where Harris stands on the housing
Harris outlined ambitious plans to tackle housing affordability as part of a larger rollout of her economic plan during the summer.
The plan called for the construction of 3 million new housing units over the next four years, along with what it described as the first tax incentive for building starter homes for new homebuyers.
Another plan Harris proposed builds upon a Biden administration proposal that sought to provide first-generation homebuyers with $25,000 in down-payment assistance. Part of the idea, her campaign has said, is to ensure “full participation” by those buyers and to provide the bloc with more “generous support.” But the idea has raised concern.
However, recent polling has shown that Harris could have a leg up over Trump on the issue of affordability, with almost half of renters in a Redfin survey saying they prefer the vice president when it comes to making housing affordable, compared to about a third who backed Trump on the matter.
Harris has also called for an expansion to an existing tax credit for businesses that build affordable rental housing, as well as a $40 billion federal fund to help boost construction. Other measures she’s pushed for include the passage of legislation aimed at countering rising home prices by targeting tax breaks for certain investors, while also cracking down on rent price coordination among property managers and landlords.
What Trump has proposed on housing
The official Trump Republican Platform calls for tackling housing costs as part of a broader plan focused on lowering mortgage rates by fighting inflation, although a recent survey has shown more economists expect higher inflation and interest rates under a Trump presidency versus a Harris administration.
The plan calls for cutting “unnecessary regulations” that Republicans say raise housing costs and promoting homeownership through tax incentives, as well as a tougher stance on the border and immigration to counter rising housing costs.
“Republicans will secure the border, deport Illegal aliens, and reverse the Democrats’ open borders policies that have driven up the cost of housing, education, and healthcare for American families,” it states.
However, the potential economic consequences of mass deportations, including in areas like construction, has raised alarm.
Builders have warned of the threat such efforts would pose for the workforce amid already high home prices. Stan Marek, a Texas CEO whose firm specializes in specialty subcontracting, told NBC News, “You’d lose so many people that you couldn’t put a crew together to frame a house.”
“We have not seen any evidence in the data that the population growth numbers have shifted so dramatically over the last couple of years due to migration that it’s truly having an impact on the housing market,” Géno also said, while that, if “the strategy is tremendous economic growth, finding strategies to build more housing has to be at the center of that.”
“Looking at Trump’s platform overall, he really is focused on more economic prosperity, growing businesses, etc,” Géno said. “You can’t do it without more housing, and you can’t do it without more workers who can support those companies that need to expand and grow.”
A potential area for common ground between candidates is the use of federal lands for housing. Trump’s platform calls for opening “limited portions of federal lands to allow for new home construction,” while Harris’ plan also details a proposal to make some “federal lands eligible to be repurposed” for new and affordable housing developments.
