President-elect Donald Trump during a Building America’s Future panel discussion bringing together Nevada Hispanics at the Beauty Society Inc. Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024, in North Las Vegas. Credit – Madeline Carter—Getty Images

FFor many, housing was high on the issue agenda throughout the presidential election. Under the tenure of Vice President Kamala Harris and now President-elect Donald Trump debate in September, the first policy discussed was housing affordability.

“Housing, for the first time, was really, you know, at the top of a presidential campaign. I’m not sure that’s ever been the case,” Ayrianne Parks, senior director of policy advocacy at Enterprise, a national nonprofit trying to address the shortage of affordable rental housing, told TIME.

Voters considered inflation to the polls on November 5. Housing affordability is part of this problem, and an NBC a study shows that the toughest housing markets saw the largest median vote shift toward Trump compared to the 2020 election.

As house prices have increased, according to some estimates, more than 50% since the COVID-19 pandemicIt’s no surprise that housing affordability and markets are a priority for many.

Harris led much of the national debate around housing throughout the election, while Trump said very little about his housing policy during his campaign. In his political program, Agenda 47he pledged to “make it his personal mission to completely eradicate veteran homelessness in America by the end of the next term.” He also said he would “saving America’s cities from the scourge of the homeless, drug addicts, and the dangerously disturbed.”

Now that Trump prepares to return to the White House, housing advocates, experts and economists are considering what his second term could mean for housing by gleaning insights from what he has tried to do, and which he did successfully, under the first Trump administration. Although much remains to be seen, such as his appointment as director of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, now that he has obtained a the winning trio of republican controlTrump is likely to act quickly.

“President Trump can be trusted to restore the American dream because he has a real plan to beat inflation, lower mortgage rates and make buying a home dramatically more affordable,” said Karoline Leavitt , national press secretary for the Trump campaign (who is now in office). as spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition) told TIME via email in Septemberasked about how Trump plans to solve the housing crisis. “It will rein in federal spending, end the unsustainable invasion of illegal aliens that is driving up housing costs, cut taxes on American families, eliminate costly regulations, and free up appropriate portions of federal lands for accommodation.”

Here are three key areas where Trump’s presidency could impact housing.

Mass expulsion of immigrants

Trump and his vice president J.D. Vance told voters they would carry out the largest eviction program in history and said the mass eviction would drive down housing prices.

“When you let 25 million illegal aliens… when you let these people in your country at the level we have, you have to put them somewhere… and that means these are homes that are not going to citizens Americans,” Vance said in a Town Hall of the Nation hosted by Chris Cuomo. “It will also drive up the cost of housing.”

But many economists claim that there is no clear link between undocumented immigration and housing affordability and recent studies have actually found this expulsion could reduce employment in the United States and lower GDP.

“If he’s true to his word on mass evictions, what effect is that going to have on the construction job market…it’s going to drive up costs and cause delays,” Alex Schwartz, politics professor urban at the New School in New York. said. Currently, about 30% of the construction workforce are immigrants, according to the National Immigration Forum.

For Rachel Fee, executive director of the New York Housing Conference, which advocates for affordable housing for New Yorkers, this mass eviction effort does not seem correlated with the city’s housing problems.

“In New York, we experienced an affordability crisis and low rental vacancy rates before an influx of migrants. This issue has no impact on this issue… so I don’t really see it as any sort of solution,” she says.

In Agenda 47, Trump outlined this plan specifically for veterans, stating that President Joe Biden is “putting illegal aliens ahead of homeless veterans and we cannot allow that to happen anymore.”

But Fee points to programs that already exist for homeless veterans, like HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing. (HUD-VASH) program. “If that was truly the problem you wanted to solve, we have had successful efforts in the past with federal programs that are still ongoing and underfunded,” she says.

Open federal lands to construction to increase housing supply

During a speech In September, before the Economic Club of New York, Trump promised to ease regulations and open swathes of federal land to large-scale housing construction.

“The regulations cost 30 percent of the price of a new home, and we will open portions of federal lands to large-scale housing construction,” he said. “These zones will have ultra-low taxes and regulations – one of the great job creation programs for small businesses.”

Biden called on federal agencies in July to “evaluate excess federal land that can be reused to build more affordable housing across the country.”

Although economists say this could do no harm to the housing crisis, the extent of this aid depends largely on how these plans are implemented and where these “federal lands” are actually located. .

“It’s also not necessarily located near public transportation or the jobs where you want to build,” Fee says. “In the past, there have been some successful infill projects on Veterans Affairs (VA) supportive housing campuses built to help veterans who were formerly homeless and need services to remain adequately housed. stable…but I could probably only think of two examples. . We face a much larger challenge than this opportunity would solve.

Interest rates, budgets and taxes

On the campaign trail, Trump said he would lower interest rates, focusing on the Federal Reserve, an independent entity, as a way to reduce interest paid by consumers or businesses. This could affect mortgage prices.

At a National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) conference On July 31, Trump addressed both housing and interest rates, promising to “drill, baby, drill,” once in office.

“I’m bringing energy down significantly, I’m bringing interest rates down significantly, I’m bringing inflation down significantly,” he said.

During his first term, Trump under pressure the Fed will lower its interest rates. Last week, Fed officials reduced their key interest rate for the second time in a row, but officials see Trump’s proposed tariffs and deportations as potentially increasing inflation.

“Trump’s proposed economic measures could also increase inflation, which would often lead to higher mortgage rates. For example, immediately after the election results, 30-year fixed mortgage rates jumped 9 basis points which suggests that investors are expecting higher borrowing costs in the near future,” says Cynthia Seifert, a former Texas real estate agent and founder of real estate generation tool KeyLeads. “However, if the Federal Reserve decides to lower interest rates, as it did in September, mortgage rates could fall regardless of Trump’s presidential policies.”

As for the budget, many experts say it remains uncertain. “We saw some pretty harmful cuts be propose in his budget year year after year,” Fee says of the first Trump administration’s attempts to eliminate things like housing choice voucher programs and public housing repair funding. But those cuts didn’t pass due to oversight in Congress.

Although she is also concerned about these types of budget cuts, especially with Republicans controlling both the Home And SenateParks sees opportunity, particularly for the low-income housing tax credit, which has bipartisan support.

“You know, I think this is going to be a major breakthrough,” she said. “And, in fact, President-elect Trump has said he wants the taxes paid immediately, within the first 100 days…We will work with the presidential transition team, making sure they understand the importance of these funding programs and we also hope to influence the budgets that will be published.

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