Free Republic

In California’s notoriously expensive Bay Area, living out of one’s vehicle has increasing appeal. Recreational vehicle (RV) parks, once the domain of seasonal workers and adventurous retirees, now host local residents with full-time jobs aiming to cut costs — by avoiding high housing costs altogether. These days, RV parks are filling up even more with state residents aiming to save cash. Among them are brothers Stefan and Sebastian Goins, who recently made the leap to RV living after six years of rent hikes in their Pleasantville apartment. They drained their savings to buy a $24,000 32-foot long traveling trailer. But...

A proposed Department of Housing and Urban Development rule would crack down on illegal immigrants or unqualified people living in public housing, closing a loophole established amid major departmental reforms under President Bill Clinton in 1996. Current HUD rules allow "mixed-status" households to use public housing under what is called the "do not contend" provision, in which a person living among a public housing family can declare they "do not contend" their HUD eligibility under their immigration status, and the family instead receives prorated housing assistance. The HUD-ineligible family member or members may remain in public housing so long as...

This is a truly Bizarro World story out of deep blue Prince George’s County, Md. Back in December, some 100 families living in the Marylander Condominiums complex were told they would have to leave their homes because the building was deemed “unfit for human habitation.” Last week, a Maryland judge signed a final eviction notice, which could leave many of these families homeless. Why? Turns out that the complex has been besieged for years by a nearby homeless encampment that is “a haven for gangs, drugs, and prostitutes” and has “vaporized property values and caused millions in damage, scaring away...

There's one utterly reliable thing about socialism: It fails, every time it's tried. It may fail on the national scale, like the Soviet Union, or it may fail on the municipal scale, like New York City is in the throes of doing right now. The "democratic socialist" mayor of the Big Apple, Zohran Mamdani, has never seen a commie policy he didn't like.One of those policies is freezing rents in the city. That's already producing predictable results: Landlords are selling out and leaving.When Zohran Mamdani ran for mayor of New York City, he made one promise unmistakably clear: he would...

San Francisco just dropped a $300,000 sprinkler mandate on 9,800 condo owners — and that’s just the beginning. California homeowners are now facing a stack of unfunded mandates that could cost half a million dollars per property. No vote. No public funding. No way out. In this video I expose how a failed San Francisco politician got a $300,000 per unit fire sprinkler retrofit mandate passed after it was defeated TWICE — by burying it in a routine fire code update. I reveal why the sprinkler fitters union is blocking repeal, how the national plumbers union is pushing this mandate...

Portland’s economy is not working for the majority of residents and businesses. Housing is too expensive. Companies are shrinking their presence in the city. Job numbers are going down. And the city’s most promising indicator of growth can’t be relied upon in today’s political climate: international in-migration. Those are some of the findings from ECOnorthwest, a research and consulting firm headquartered in Portland. The city’s business advocacy group, Portland Metro Chamber, partners each year with the firm to research and analyze economic indicators in the region. In the latest report released Thursday, economists at ECOnorthwest looked at population, housing affordability...

High home prices, faltering supply and weaker consumer confidence in the economy all continue to weigh on the U.S. housing market. The chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, Lawrence Yun, is calling it “a new housing crisis.” Sales of previously owned homes in January dropped a much wider-than-expected 8.4% from December to a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 3.91 million, according to the NAR. Sales were 4.4% lower than January 2025. That is the slowest pace since December 2023 and the biggest monthly drop since February 2022. This count is based on closings, so contracts that were likely...

Manhattan’s luxury housing market is quietly edging back toward its mid-2010s swagger after a decade marked by excess, collapse and recovery. And this time, the rebound appears to be powered by real money, not just empty supply. New data shows the borough’s priciest homes are nearly back to their 2016 highs, a milestone last seen during the condo boom that reshaped Manhattan’s skyline. By the end of last year, the median price for a luxury home — defined as the top 10% of the market — hit $6.39 million, according to a new report from Douglas Elliman. Manhattan’s luxury housing...

STOPPING WALL STREET FROM COMPETING WITH MAIN STREET HOMEBUYERS: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to protect the American Dream by making sure that large institutional investors do not buy single-family homes that could otherwise be purchased by families.The Order directs key agencies to issue guidance preventing relevant Federal programs from approving, insuring, guaranteeing, securitizing, or facilitating sales of single-family homes to institutional investors.The Order instructs key agencies to promote sales to individual owner-occupants through first-look policies (which give individuals and other non-institutional investors the opportunity to buy foreclosed properties before investors do), disclosure requirements, and anti-circumvention...

President Donald Trump’s mass deportation policies are not the only reason for the decline, but they are a big contributing factor. Enforcing immigration law and allowing more homes to be built are doing more for renters than slogans and rent control ever did. I

The first comment of this thread will display this chart. For discussion.

Democratic lawmakers on Thursday slammed President Trump over comments he made about wanting to “drive housing prices up” for people who own their homes, with one congresswoman telling followers that he “doesn’t care about making your life more affordable.”During a Cabinet meeting earlier Thursday, the president said he wants to keep homeowners “wealthy.”“We’re not going to destroy the value of their homes so that somebody that didn’t work very hard can buy a home,” he said. “I don’t want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up for people who own their homes. And they can...

Who could have guessed that prices have anything to do with supply and demand? Not me. I used to think so, but after I got into an argument with a liberal friend of mine after I suggested that the housing crisis was related to the surge in illegal immigration, and he exploded at me, I changed my mind. His emotional response was very convincing. Well, it turns out that reality really doesn't respond as one would expect to emotional outbursts, and when demand drops due to fewer people seeking limited resources, prices really do fall. Los Angeles is one of...

Keep on printing money. It seems that home price growth requires The Fed to keep printing money. S&P/Case-Shiller released the monthly Home Price Indices for November (“November” is a 3-month average of September, October and November closing prices). September closing prices include some contracts signed in July, so there is a significant lag to this data. Here is a graph of the month-over-month (MoM) change in the Case-Shiller National Index Seasonally Adjusted (SA). From S&P S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Index Reports Annual Gain In November 2025 From S&P S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Index Reports Annual Gain In November 2025 The S&P Cotality...

Its some kind of wonderful … for home buyers. Home sellers outnumbered buyers by 47.1% in December 2025, the largest gap since Redfin data began in 2013. The percentage jumped by +7.1 points from November, the biggest monthly increase since September 2022. The number of active homebuyers fell -5.9% MoM to 1.34 million, the lowest level on record. Meanwhile, home sellers declined -1.1% MoM to 1.97 million, the lowest since February 2025. By comparison, in November 2021, there were 36.5% fewer sellers than buyers. This all comes as elevated housing costs and economic uncertainty continue to push buyers to the...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) ordered all public housing authorities and owners receiving department-funded housing Friday to verify tenant citizenship and eligibility after an audit conducted with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) flagged tens of thousands of deceased and ineligible tenants nationwide. HUD said the audit identified nearly 200,000 tenants requiring eligibility verification, including nearly 25,000 deceased tenants and nearly 6,000 ineligible non-American tenants across federally funded housing programs. Under the directive, HUD said all public housing authorities and participating owners have 30 days to take corrective action or face potential sanctions.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani Makes a Housing-Related Announcement

Residents in a trendy apartment building in Denver, Colorado say their peaceful lives turned into a nightmare when homeless families were given free apartments next door. Owen Johnson, a 25-year-old from Missouri, says he moved into the White Swan apartment building near the city's Congress Park in May with his wife. But Johnson says their honeymoon period after tying the knot was quickly ruined when a homeless man was given a state housing voucher to move into the apartment next to theirs, and he says it dawned on them the tenant 'was crazy.'

For millions of Americans, buying a home no longer feels like a goal. It feels like a gamble they are destined to lose. Prices rise faster than savings. Mortgage payments outpace wages. Each rejected offer chips away at confidence.Donald Trump says that cycle must stop.His plan to ban large institutional investors from buying houses has struck a nerve across the US. It speaks directly to people who believe the housing market no longer serves them.The message is blunt. Homes are for people, not corporations.A Promise Built on FrustrationFor many, housing affordability defines their daily lives. Their circumstances have changed; many...

Move over, Tim Walz, because Joe Biden looks to be giving you a run for your money when it comes to fraud. In the final year of the Biden administration, federal officials sprayed billions of taxpayer dollars meant to keep struggling families in their homes around the country like confetti, sending a shocking slice of that money to dead people, ineligible non-citizens, and tenants collecting more than the law allows. “A US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) report found more than $5 billion in taxpayer funds went to ‘questionable’ rental assistance recipients during the final year of the...