Free Republic

A new Federal Reserve working paper found the record surge in illegal immigration during the Biden administration triggered higher home prices and rents. The findings arrive as immigration remains a polarizing political issue. Republicans argue former President Joe Biden’s border policies strained housing and public resources, while Democrats say immigration helped ease labor shortages and supported economic growth. The paper, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, combines immigration court records with government administrative data to measure how the unprecedented wave of illegal immigration between 2021 and 2024 affected local labor and housing markets.

A new Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas working paper estimates the record surge in illegal immigration during the Biden administration boosted employment while driving up home prices by as much as 30% and rent by 20%. The paper combined immigration court records with government administrative data to create the first ever calculation of how a wave of 7 million illegal immigrants from 2021 through 2024 affected local labor and housing markets. "From early 2021 to early 2024, the U.S. experienced an unprecedented boom in unauthorized immigration, followed by a rapid slowdown beginning in mid-2024. We provide the first systematic empirical...

The Democratic Socialists of America LA chapter has released a 40-page, 9,000-word manifesto that lays out an aggressive, six-to-eight-year plan to seize control of the nation’s second-largest city and impose full-blown socialism In what can only be described as a chilling blueprint for economic destruction and social chaos (see below), the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Los Angeles chapter has released a 40-page, 9,000-word manifesto that lays out an aggressive, six-to-eight-year plan to seize control of the nation’s second-largest city and impose full-blown socialism. This radical document, published in 2025, doesn’t mince words: Los Angeles is “on the burning edge...

The bar for entry-level homeownership has never been higher. While the typical starter home nationwide is worth $198,649, a record 242 cities now have starter homes valued at $1 million or more, A record 242 US cities now have starter homes that cost $1 million, according to Zillow A typical “starter home” is defined for this analysis as a home in the lowest third of home values in a given region. The count of cities with million-dollar starter homes has grown from 226 cities a year ago, even as affordability pressures have begun to ease in parts of the country....

The Trump administration is looking to reduce housing costs by removing Biden-era green energy mandates. The International Energy Conservation Code was revised in 2021 to increase building energy efficiency mandates as part of former President Joe Biden's overall climate policy. However, the regulations drove up the cost of building homes and exacerbated the housing shortage, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner told The Midwesterner. A failure to comply with the standards results in a denial of federal funding for new construction. The cost of compliance, Turner said, adds $31,000 to the cost of a home, and the Trump...

Squatters are taking over homes across the country and Flash Shelton is the man who gets them out. With bold tactics and street smarts, Flash and his team face tense and sometimes dangerous situations to help families reclaim their property. Each episode reveals the emotional and high-stakes battles where the fight for justice can quickly escalate, putting everyone involved at risk. This is the struggle to take back what rightfully belongs to them.

BREAKING: Minnesota residents Shamso Ahmed Hassan and Hanaan Mursal Yusuf ARRESTED for $21 million Medicaid fraud scheme

In 1974, New York Times humorist Russell Baker identified a “pig in the python” working its way through the economy: the bulge of 76 million Baby Boomers squeezing through America’s economic system, distorting everything they passed through. When Boomers flooded the labor market in the 1970s, they created a competitive squeeze that never fully released — leaving the generations behind them without the wage rebound economists had predicted. When they bought homes, prices soared. When they took the top jobs in business, culture, and civic life, they held them — and held them, and held them. For half a century,...

Mortgage rates continued to move higher in the past week as geopolitical turmoil caused the 10-year Treasury yield to soar, although mortgage spreads remain well below their levels of 2024 and 2025. At HousingWire‘s Mortgage Rates Center, rates for 30-year conforming loans were at 6.77%, their highest point of the year. Rates for 30-year loans through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) averaged 6.33% and rates for 30-year jumbo loans averaged 6.89%. HousingWire Data is benchmarked across a base of retail lenders using a standardized borrower scenario with a 75% loan-to-value ratio and a 780 FICO score. Last week, loan officers...

FHA loans to non-permanent residents quickly grew to represent 6% of mortgage issuances. The percentage was undoubtedly higher in places like the DFW area, where H-1B visa holders are disproportionately concentrated. I don’t have anything against people in America on H-1B visas. I’ve said it before—and I’ll say it again—that I’ve found many of them to be great people on an individual level, and I wish them all nothing but the best. Individual immigrants—especially those here legally—are not at fault for flawed US immigration policy. But this might be the most radicalizing thing I’ve ever seen. Not only are American...

For generations, Americans viewed homes as more than assets. They were the physical foundation of family stability, equity-building, and civic continuity — the bedrock of a middle-class society rooted in dispersed private ownership. Owning a home was analogous to owning a piece of the American Dream itself: a symbol of citizen sovereignty and national agency. That understanding is fading. Recently, while selling a property, I encountered a buyer who presented himself as a flipper. The contract revealed something else: minimal earnest money, aggressive escape clauses, cash-only terms, and assignment language that treated the deal more like a tradable derivative than...

California used to be a place where you could get ahead. Work hard, save up, buy your first home, and build a life. That path is disappearing. A generation ago, buying your first home was something many Californians could imagine doing in their 20s. Today, the median first-time homebuyer is 40. Today, first-time buyers are being shut out of the market entirely. The homes that do get built are too big, too expensive, and completely out of reach for young, middle-class families. Starter homes, the foundation of a healthy housing market, have almost vanished. That’s not just a housing issue....

The American dream is dying, according to the Times. To mark the US’s 250th anniversary, the paper commissioned YouGov to explore whether the country’s citizens still believe that if you ‘work hard and play by the rules’ you will eventually be successful. Turns out, only 38 per cent of the respondents think this applies to all Americans, while 59 per cent think the American dream is now less attainable than it was when they were growing up. In addition, 38 per cent rated today’s quality of life as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’, compared with 60 per cent who said the same...

This year, so far, has been a robust one for Manhattan’s trophy-home market. Since the beginning of the year, 126 contracts have been signed for homes priced at $10 million and above, according to Olshan Realty’s Monday report. That’s well ahead of last year’s 90 trophy deals that were logged during the same period, and even ahead of the 117 that were signed in the same time frame in 2021, a record-breaking year for Manhattan’s luxury-home market that included 400 trophy-home contracts.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — White House economists estimate the United States has a shortage of 10 million houses, according to a new report out Monday — and say regulatory cuts could lead to more construction to stabilize prices, increase home ownership and fuel faster economic growth. Trump has signaled that taming high housing costs is a top priority for his administration. The housing chapter of the annual economic report, obtained by The Associated Press before its release, lays out a blueprint for how more home construction would help the middle class and the overall economy, setting up an argument that Trump...

White House economists estimate the United States has a shortage of 10 million houses, according to a new report out Monday — and say regulatory cuts could lead to more construction to stabilize prices, increase home ownership and fuel faster economic growth. The analysis, part of the Economic Report of the President, outlines both a political risk and a messaging opportunity for President Donald Trump, whose public approval has slumped because of concerns about his tariffs, the Iran war and his unfulfilled promises to slash inflation and unleash stronger growth. Trump signed two executive orders in March directing federal agencies...

The median home sale price in the San Francisco metropolitan area jumped 14.4% year over year in March to a record $1.7 million. That’s the largest increase since March 2018 and the biggest gain among the 50 most populous U.S. metro areas. Condo prices in San Francisco rose particularly quickly, posting a 24.4% year-over-year increase last month—the largest since 2013. San Francisco’s housing market has been heating up as a boom in the artificial intelligence industry and a return to the office have coincided with a lack of inventory. “A lot of 22-year-olds are getting $500,000 signing bonuses from AI...

Florida condo owners are waking up to a brutal new reality: their homes are becoming virtually worthless. Desperate sellers all over the Sunshine State are slashing prices to as little as $10,000 - and still failing to find buyers. The property problem across the state has been triggered by a tough new safety law brought in after the 2021 deadly Surfside condominium collapse that killed 98 people, forcing aging buildings to undergo inspections and fund massive repairs. Florida-based real estate expert Katrin Pfitzenreiter told the Daily Mail that, for many owners, this has meant repair bills in excess of $100,000,...

Meanwhile, foreign Islamists meeting “residency” requirements receive taxpayer assistance. Andreas Wailzer at LifeSite News reports that the German government, through the Ministry of Construction, has just proposed a new bill that “would give municipalities the right of first refusal if a potential buyer of property has ‘anti-constitutional aspirations.’” But those with “anti-constitutional aspirations” aren’t to be confused with the third-world foreigners and hordes of Islamists who have decidedly not integrated and accepted the German constitution and government as authoritative, instead bringing sharia culture, customs, and pseudo-law to Germany and making no pretenses of hiding their intentions—this is specifically in regards...

San Diego is one of the nation’s hottest housing markets, with average home prices hovering around $1 million and rents for a one-bedroom apartment topping $2,000 a month. Yet city officials estimate that more than 5,000 properties sit empty most of the year, which some advocates argue worsens the city’s housing shortage and affordability crisis. So California’s second-largest city is set to take dramatic action. In a few weeks, San Diego voters will decide whether to become the latest California municipality to tax vacant homes