Posted on 01/09/2026 12:15:46 PM PST by karpov
If imitation is the sincerest form of politics, President Trump is paying Elizabeth Warren great homage by copying the Senator’s ideas. In November he asked the Justice Department to investigate meat-packers for price-fixing. On Wednesday he endorsed a ban on large institutional investors buying homes.
Mr. Trump is searching for ways to lower housing costs and now he’s seizing on a favorite of the anti-business left. “People live in homes, not corporations,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it.”
rogressives have long blamed high housing prices on large investors that buy properties to rent and thereby supposedly squeeze out middle-class families. But this doesn’t fit the facts of the housing market. The top two dozen single-family rental firms own about 520,000 homes in the U.S. combined. That’s less than 1% of the single-family housing stock.
Small investors make up a much larger share of the market. Owners of one to five properties account for 87% of investor-owned homes, compared to 2% for those that own more than 1,000. Large investors have recently been selling more homes than they’re buying. Blackstone says it has been a net seller for a decade.
It’s true that large investors have certain tax advantages that accrue to all companies, such as depreciation. But individual buyers can deduct mortgage interest and property taxes and have a capital-gains exclusion of up to $500,000 for couples on the sale of primary residence. The tax differences don’t seem to be decisive as a buying advantage.
It’s also true that home sellers tend to prefer buyers who make all-cash offers, which can give investors an edge.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Trump gets up every morning and asks himself, “What would Elizabeth do?”
Removing several million people who aren’t supposed to be here should have some effect on the housing market, you would think.
Also building costs! Raw material costs are crazy high.
Watch Elizabeth Warren come out against her own ideas now. Maybe Trump will come out in support of the Glass-Steagall Act too since Warren wanted to bring it back
Trump also wants lower interest rates, yet it was in fact low interest rates that helped fuel the housing price inflation that now makes for average home prices in many markets making housing less affordable for more buyers than 20 years ago.
The fact is the current 6% rates are close to the historic norms.
keep deporting and housing prices will come down ...
In a weak economy, using low or even negative interest rates to try to prop things up, as we saw during the Obama presidency, only serves to give greater liquidity to the wealthy business class who use it to pump money into stocks and/or real estate and generate an artificial rise in the value of such assets that only they, and few others, are able to take advantage of.
Low interest rates in an expanding economy that is experiencing low inflation is an entirely different thing. In an expanding economy, a broader spectrum of the population can benefit from low interest rates. People have jobs, rising incomes and rising opportunities, allowing the average person greater access to the low interest financing that was previously only available to the wealthy.
Additionally, a strong economy provides the wealthy with a wider variety of genuine investment opportunities based on real economic growth, so there’s less incentive for them to over invest in real state.
Your comment fits pretty well with the fact that lowering mortgage interest rates began in 2001 (after GWBush took office) and that an inflationary housing boom took off from there leading to the financial crisis in 2008.
It is also true that mortgage interest rates went up a bit as from 2006 through 2008, which also saw the rate of change of the GDP move from negative to even. That fits with your view.
Mortgage interest rates went into decline again while Obama was in office, and the GDP annual change was negative the whole time. Again it fits with your analysis.
not really
what a retarded article. from our globalist pukes at the WSJ.
Exactly and they know it. People buy according to the payment. When prices are low, interest is high and vice versa. Then the material component gets involved.
Everybody wants as much as they can get out of that homebuilding pie!!
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