President Donald Trump announced that the federal government will purchase $200 billion in mortgage bonds in an effort he believes will help lower housing costs.
In a Truth Social post on Thursday, he said former President Joe Biden “ignored the housing market” and said that he, by contrast, is giving “special attention” to the issue.
“Because I chose not to sell Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in my First Term, a truly great decision, and against the advice of the ‘experts,’ it is now worth many times that amount — AN ABSOLUTE FORTUNE — and has $200 BILLION DOLLARS IN CASH,” he said.
“Because of this, I am instructing my Representatives to BUY $200 BILLION DOLLARS IN MORTGAGE BONDS. This will drive Mortgage Rates DOWN, monthly payments DOWN, and make the cost of owning a home more affordable,” the president continued. Trump directly said it would help in “restoring Affordability,” which has become a buzzword on the 2026 campaign trail as the country still recovers from post-pandemic and Biden-era inflation.
The announcement comes after he said on Wednesday that he would be taking action against institutional investors purchasing single-family homes.
“It is for that reason, and much more, that 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. People live in homes, not corporations. I will discuss this topic, including further Housing and Affordability proposals, and more, at my speech in Davos in two weeks,” Trump wrote on Wednesday.
The Daily Wire reported after Trump’s Wednesday announcement, this is part of a larger effort by the administration to tackle housing woes nationwide, including the push from the president to select a Federal Reserve chair who will aggressively cut interest rates, as Chair Jerome Powell leaves the role in May.
&#8220;Could somebody please inform Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell that he is hurting the Housing Industry, very badly? People can&#8217;t get a Mortgage because of him. There is no Inflation, and every sign is pointing to a major Rate Cut,&#8221; the president posted to Truth Social in August.
Home prices have surged over the last decade by 105%, according to MoneyLion in October.

President Trump Visits Federal Reserve

Trump Vows To Lower Mortgages With ‘$200 Billion’ Bond Purchase

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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani&#8217;s Director of Tenant Protection might need some protection herself after a tough first week on the job left her in tears.
On Monday, Cea Weaver caught flak for old social media posts, including one claiming home ownership was a weapon of white supremacy. On Tuesday, she struggled to defend the Mamdani administration&#8217;s controversial housing policies in a Spectrum News interview. And on Wednesday, a reporter confronted the housing radical about her mother&#8217;s $1.6 million Nashville home.
Instead of responding, Weaver <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/01/07/us-news/zohran-mamdanis-tenant-advocate-cea-weaver-breaks-down-crying-when-asked-about-hypocritical-gentrification-comments/">reportedly</a> started crying and ran back inside her apartment. The 37-year-old activist has a history of complaining about gentrification, including in her Brooklyn neighborhood — where she is herself a gentrifier.
It&#8217;s a rough start for Weaver, who is expected to play a major role in Mamdani&#8217;s administration. The tenant czar is slated to direct Mamdani&#8217;s &#8220;Rental Ripoff Hearings,&#8221; struggle sessions in which residents of all five boroughs will be able to publicly voice their complaints about their rental experience.
&#8220;Working New Yorkers will be able to speak about the challenges they face,&#8221; from behind a microphone, Mamdani says, &#8220;from poor building conditions to hidden fees on rent payments.” The Mamdani administration says it will then identify “common themes” in the complaints to “directly inform policy interventions to take on these ripoff tactics.”
Mamdani already gave one tenant the floor at a press conference announcing the “Rental Ripoff” hearings. Josie Wells is a tenant at 85 Clarkson Avenue, a rent-stabilized apartment building in Brooklyn. Wells <a href="https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=7670df6d756a93b6&amp;rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS1183US1185&amp;udm=7&amp;fbs=AIIjpHxU7SXXniUZfeShr2fp4giZrjP_Cx0LI1Ytb_FGcOviEreERTNAkkP8Y6EXltYTGWs9RGaEMfZ2dZFFrbmM-rnq9t2Yd6CLmSU0fTw2YpsUFAZkjtkV3nlJNkF6dgnv8hBPbkvFBFvt9qVz5tXWHwMIOLAC51x133zpKWFy3_mb_RMbN-fftEKVRqPS6EEOPe03eIz5AliHkH7tItgiHkmm33AQJg&amp;q=mamdani+press+conference+housing&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjJnLSQuvWRAxWRD1kFHXKuH1QQtKgLegQIFRAB&amp;biw=736&amp;bih=790&amp;dpr=2#fpstate=ive&amp;vld=cid:10516219,vid:Adjn_PIVwa4,st:0">complained</a> about the “dirty walls that haven’t seen a fresh coat of paint in years, cabinets hanging precariously in kitchens and bathrooms, [and] cracked plaster [that] zig-zags across ceilings and hallways.”
85 Clarkson Avenue is one of the many properties owned by the Pinnacle Group, which filed for bankruptcy in May 2025, and was featured at this press conference.
At the press conference, a sign read, “As we rise, Pinnacle will fall.” The sign was displayed by the Union of Pinnacle Tenants, who organized to fight “for a say in the auction process to ensure that repairs are made, our rent stabilization is respected, and our buildings aren’t sold to yet another abusive landlord.”
Advisors to Pinnacle Group <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-29/bankrupt-nyc-rental-buildings-get-451-million-offer-from-summit">said</a> that “the bankruptcies were caused by a sharp rise in interest rates, inflation-driven increases in operating expenses, and lower rent collections.”
Weaver says the Mamdani administration has gotten involved to ensure the building goes to someone who can pay for upkeep while also complying with rent price caps.
&#8220;The city intervened in the bankruptcy proceeding in order for the city to take a hard look at the conditions that are in the building as well as a plan that has been put forth by the top bidder, because we want to ensure that whoever is taking on this portfolio is able to comply with both rent stabilization laws as well as housing maintenance code.&#8221;
As of now, it is unclear if there is a bidder who fits that description.

Overhead view of some New York City Housing Authority  (NYCHA) projects (1977)

Mamdani’s Director Of Tenant Protection Breaks Down After Brutal First Week On The Job

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President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he plans to take executive action to stop “large institutional investors” from buying “single-family” homes in the United States.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the move comes as housing affordability remains a major concern for Americans, adding that he would like Congress to codify the policy into law.
“For a very long time, buying and owning a home was considered the pinnacle of the American Dream. It was the reward for working hard, and doing the right thing, but now, because of the Record High Inflation caused by Joe Biden and the Democrats in Congress, that American Dream is increasingly out of reach for far too many people, especially younger Americans,” he posted.
“It is for that reason, and much more, that 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. People live in homes, not corporations. I will discuss this topic, including further Housing and Affordability proposals, and more, at my speech in Davos in two weeks,” he continued. The details of the plan are currently unknown.
A 2024 Government Accountability Office <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106643?utm_campaign=usgao_email&amp;utm_content=topic_housing&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=govdelivery" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> found that the impact of institutional investors varies widely by region, with many areas in the southern United States showing a significant share of the single-family rental homes owned by investors with more than 1,000 properties.
“Millions of homeowners defaulted on their mortgages during the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Institutional investors — companies that own a lot of single-family rental homes — bought many of these foreclosed homes in bulk and converted them into rental housing, especially in states across the southern U.S.,” the GAO’s website states regarding the report.
“Researchers found that institutional investors may have contributed to increasing home prices and rents following the financial crisis. However, it&#8217;s unclear how these investors affected homeownership opportunities or tenants because many related factors affect homeownership — e.g., market conditions, demographic factors, and lending conditions,” it continues.
Interest rates are also expected to be a major factor, as Trump is expected to name a successor to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, whose term ends in May. The president has called for rates to be cut more aggressively, which could impact how much homebuyers can afford to borrow.

US-ECONOMY-HOUSING-REAL ESTATE

Trump Makes Big Move To Combat Spiking Home Prices, Takes Aim At Big Investors

scott turner

With the median home price hovering north of $433,000 and no signs of mortgage rates dropping anytime soon, many Americans may have to put off their dream of buying a house.
Many of those who do buy homes may have begun their search on Zillow, a popular real estate website. Some might even take advantage of a Zillow Home Loan, conveniently available on the same site as the listings.
Zillow says its home loans are &#8220;competitive.&#8221; And while they were slightly cheaper than competitors in 2022, they&#8217;ve grown steadily more expensive in subsequent years — and a <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5951355">new study</a> funded by CoStar suggests that Zillow is overcharging borrowers.
Steven C. Salop of the Georgetown University Law Center reports that borrowers who used Zillow Home Loans paid higher mortgage costs than those who borrowed from other lenders. On average, consumers who chose Zillow paid 10 to 15% more in annual percentage rate.
In 2024, Zillow’s mortgages carried an average cost of about $4,600 more than competitors on a typical loan size of $337,000. That difference amounts to roughly $21 more per month over a 30-year mortgage — assuming the loan is held full-term.
The study concludes that lower-income borrowers were hardest hit. For borrowers making $60,000 or less in 2024, Zillow loans cost an added 3% of the loan’s value over time, according to the analysis. The study also found racial disparities in pricing, alleging in 2024 that white non-Hispanic and Asian borrowers saw a 1.5% surcharge while black borrowers faced a 2.9% surcharge, compared with similar borrowers at other lenders.
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Salop analyzed federal mortgage data from 2022 through 2024, comparing Zillow Home Loans with all other lenders. The sample focused on 30-year fixed-rate purchase mortgages and sought to compare nearly identical loans by controlling for borrower characteristics, loan type, geography, and market conditions.
Zillow has pushed back on the report, <a href="https://www.onlinemarketplaces.com/articles/zillow-challenges-inaccurate-study-as-author-defends-findings/?referrer=grok.com">saying</a> it draws on inaccurate information and that the study was funded by a competitor.
“Zillow Home Loans is committed to both fair lending and pro-consumer practices,&#8221; the company said in a statement. &#8220;We have a robust fair lending compliance program.&#8221;
Zillow is currently <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/zillow-hit-with-class-action-over-alleged-mortgage-steering-scheme-2025-11-10/">facing</a> two class-action lawsuits alleging the company “operates programs in which its affiliate real estate agents receive high-value sales leads only if they meet internal quotas for securing pre-approved mortgages from Zillow Home Loans.”

Home For Sale Real Estate Sign and House

Zillow Overcharges For Home Loans, Poor Borrowers Hardest Hit: Report

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Red downward arrow in front of house. Illustration of the concept of falling prices of real estate properties.

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A coalition of officials from 20 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over the government’s plan to overhaul an Obama-era approach to homelessness.
Nineteen state attorneys general and two governors joined the <a href="https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/court-filings/washington-et-al-v-united-states-department-of-housing-and-urban-development-et-al-complaint-2025.pdf">lawsuit</a>, <a href="https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2025/attorney-general-james-sues-trump-administration-protect-billions-dollars-fight">led</a> by New York Democratic Attorney General Letitia James. The lawsuit seeks to stop reforms to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s &#8220;Continuum of Care&#8221; program funding, which provides grants to groups that provide housing to homeless people and families.
The Trump administration plans to significantly reduce funds allocated to so-called “Housing First” providers. Under the department’s current homelessness grant structure, nearly all funding goes to providers that offer housing without requiring tenants to stay sober, pursue job training, or participate in other support services.
“HUD has adopted new policies, without any meaningful public input, that reverse the agency’s longstanding support for Housing First policies and fundamentally undermine the goal of providing dependable housing,” the lawsuit states. “A Housing First model provides stable housing to individuals without preconditions like sobriety or minimum income. It is a model that Congress, experts, and, until recently, HUD itself, have agreed improves housing stability and health while reducing costs.”
The lawsuit argues that the Trump administration’s proposed changes to the Continuum of Care program “are unlawful several times over.”
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The Housing First strategy was introduced to federal programs under the administration of former President George W. Bush. Housing First was massively expanded under former President Barack Obama, who <a href="https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/economy/article24585973.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">promised</a> in 2010 to eliminate homelessness within a decade with major reforms to the federal approach to homelessness.
Critics of Housing First say the strategy has led to a backsliding in efforts to combat homelessness in the United States. Critics argue that the approach falls short by failing to address the root causes of homelessness, such as economic insecurity, mental illness, and drug addiction.
A 2022 <a href="https://ciceroinstitute.org/research/housing-first-is-a-failure/">report</a> by the Cicero Institute shows that, contrary to the Obama administration’s 2010 aims, homelessness in the United States has significantly worsened in areas that rely on a Housing First approach. The study found that homelessness increased by nearly 25% in areas that exclusively rely on the Housing First model.
Rep. Andy Barr, a Kentucky Republican, is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-republican-congressman-wants-to-end-the-progressive-policy-hurting-the-homeless">leading</a> an effort in Congress to address the federal government’s reliance on the housing first model. Barr, who is running to replace outgoing Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), has introduced legislation to cut funding for housing providers that use the Housing First approach.
“Housing First policy shuts out providers who offer critical wraparound services that are often essential for helping individuals break the cycle of homelessness,” Barr said. “We need to abandon HUD’s exclusive reliance on Housing First in favor of an all-hands-on-deck approach to equip the best and most effective providers with the federal funds needed to end homelessness.”
The states suing include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin, along with the commonwealths of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

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20 States Sue To Block Trump’s Cuts To Failed Obama Homelessness Policy

20 States Sue After Trump Makes Cuts To Failed Obama-Era Approach To Homelessness

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Negotiations continue as a deal for peace in Ukraine takes shape, the surge of new Turning Point USA chapter requests hits a surprising stonewall, and the Trump administration reverses a longstanding approach to handling homelessness.
It’s Tuesday, November 25, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. Today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below, and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mrn-251125">video version can be seen on The Daily Wire</a>:
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ukraines-new-deal-christian-colleges-snub-tpusa-11-25-25/id1576594336?i=1000738303342" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Trump Pushes Peace In Ukraine </h2>
Topline: American and Ukrainian diplomats continue to meet in Europe this week as they negotiate the details of a peace plan with Russia. 
The White House presented both sides with a 28-point peace plan that included significant concessions from Ukraine. Initially, it appeared the plan was a final offer—Trump went so far as to set a Thanksgiving deadline —and there were even reports that the Trump administration would cut off all military and financial aid if Ukraine turned it down, which it did. But now it appears that all-or-nothing language was more of a negotiating tactic from Trump.
After strong pushback from Ukraine and the European Union, the White House now says the plan is meant as a starting point. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio put it, “just because it’s printed on a piece of paper doesn’t indicate finality … you get input and you make adjustments.”
President Donald Trump displayed some cautious optimism, writing on Truth Social Monday, “Is it really possible that big progress is being made in Peace Talks between Russia and Ukraine??? Don’t believe it until you see it, but something good just may be happening.”
What’s in the way: The main issue for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is that the current plan would require Ukraine to surrender large portions of land in the East that would then be recognized as Russian territory. He pushed back publicly on that demand Monday, saying, “It is crucial to support the principles on which Europe stands, that borders cannot be changed by force.”
Kyiv also wants to see more concrete security guarantees that would put on paper assurances of European and U.S. military support if Russia were to relaunch its invasion.
But the big problem now is that if Ukraine succeeds in amending the plan to its liking, there’s a good chance Russian President Vladimir Putin won’t sign on. After the initial plan was released, he said it “could form the basis of a final peace settlement.” But that could well change if significant changes are made.
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">Christian Colleges Reject TPUSA</h2>
Topline: TPUSA chapters are exploding across college campuses in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, with 44,000 new applications. But a surprising number of Christian colleges and universities have rejected the organization, telling students they aren’t allowed to start new clubs.
Which schools? It’s a surprisingly long list of schools that have rejected TPUSA chapters. Point Loma Nazarene in California rejected students’ requests for a TPUSA chapter at least three times. At Biola, one of the largest evangelical universities in the country, students’ first request for a chapter was denied in 2023. In September, after Charlie’s assassination, they tried again and aren’t getting an answer.
Another Christian school, Concordia University in Wisconsin, initially rejected TPUSA, but after a student&#8217;s post about it went viral last month, they reversed course.
All told, about 20 Christian colleges and universities have said TPUSA isn’t welcome on their campuses. That includes well-known schools like Bob Jones University, Asbury, Oral Roberts, and Loyola University New Orleans. 
Why? The reasons for rejection vary by school. The students and alumni who want to see new TPUSA chapters at the schools don’t always buy the reasons they’re being given.
Point Loma said its board of directors rejected TPUSA largely because of a professor watchlist that “exposes and documents&#8221; professors who allegedly discriminate against conservative students. Even though Point Loma students agreed not to use or contribute to that list, the board still felt TPUSA doesn’t represent the kind of “constructive communication” they require from official clubs.
However, the school has approved left-leaning clubs like BREAK that focus on issues like “gender equality” and &#8220;gender justice,&#8221; and the &#8220;Center for Justice and Reconciliation,&#8221; which focuses on &#8220;immigration and racial justice.” The administration also removed a Charlie Kirk memorial that had been put up on campus after his death.
A similar situation has played out at Biola. Biola approved the left-leaning club, Students for Justice and Liberation, which says it stands for “progressive values,” the same semester they applied. Yet the verdict on TPUSA is being dragged out.
In the first rejection, the decision once again went all the way to the board of directors, and they said they took issue with TPUSA’s “narrative” and “tactics.”
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Trump’s Turn On Homelessness</h2>
Topline: The Trump administration has recently announced major changes to how the federal government funds housing for the homeless. The administration says the changes will encourage more self-sufficiency and reduce drug abuse, while opponents say it could lead to almost 200,000 people being kicked out of their homes. 
Morning Wire spoke to Judge Glock, director of research at the Manhattan Institute, about the administration’s announcement. (The following interview has been edited for clarity.)
Morning Wire: This all revolves around federal funding for homelessness. First, how does the federal government actually distribute money for this issue?  
Glock: Every year, the feds announce how nonprofits and other groups can apply for what are known as Continuum of Care or CoC grants. The CoC grants a total of about three-and-a-half billion dollars a year and mainly goes to nonprofits that provide housing. And I should just say that homeless nonprofits read this yearly announcement like it’s the Talmud or the Bible or something, because it says what they have to do to compete for the federal money and what sort of programs they can fund and what sort of things are forbidden.
Morning Wire: Got it. The administration’s announcement this year said the federal government would no longer support what it calls “the failed ‘Housing First’ ideology.” Can you explain a little bit about what “Housing First” means? 
Glock: The “Housing First” idea is that the only way to “solve” homelessness is to give the homeless subsidized and permanent housing without any conditions before entering the housing or strings attached afterwards. The basic idea is that you provide both housing and services, but it’s all voluntary. A nonprofit couldn’t force a person in one of these Housing First apartments to, say, take a drug test or even get a mental health screening. And for a little over a decade–including, I might add, through the first Trump administration–these annual funding announcements said federal money would be given almost exclusively to groups that practiced the “Housing First” philosophy. Because in most of the country, the federal money is the main source of funding for the homeless, the Housing First idea became something of a nationwide mandate.
Morning Wire: Right – so that made it a nationwide policy. What does this announcement actually change?
Glock: The biggest change is that there is no more Housing First mandate. Instead, the administration says nonprofits must provide treatment for underlying issues instead of just focusing on housing. The Housing First program was supposed to provide treatment, but it said people just kind of had to come to the treatment on their own. The problem was it’s often impossible for people in the midst of, say, a heroin addiction or schizophrenic episode to really pursue treatment. This new policy will mandate some treatment services for those in the housing units and will require more housing to be “transitional,” meaning for a limited time period until people can get back on their feet, instead of the old permanent housing model.

MRN_251125_V1

Morning Brief: Ukraine’s New Deal, TPUSA Vs. Christian Schools, & Trump’s Homeless Policy

Morning Brief: New Ukraine Peace Plan, TPUSA Rejected, And Trump’s Turn On Homelessness

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The current median price for a single-family home in America has surged to <a href="https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/home-prices-surge-five-times-median-income-nearing-historic-highs">five times</a> the median household income, causing panic among young people that the dream of homeownership may no longer be attainable.
There’s no single explanation for the spike, but there is one that’s been singled out by both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance: the massive influx of illegal immigrants into the United States during the Biden administration, when the southern border was effectively left open. Estimates suggest that more than 10 million illegal immigrants were encountered under Biden.
“We … cannot ignore the impact that the flood of 21 million illegal aliens has had on driving up housing costs,” Trump <a href="https://singjupost.com/full-transcript-trump-speaks-at-the-economic-club-of-new-york/?singlepage=1">said</a> during a speech at the Economic Club of New York in September 2024. Vance brought the subject up again just this Thursday, <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1989058155779932651">saying</a> that there could be as many as 30 million illegal immigrants in the United States “taking houses” from Americans.
“A lot of young people are saying, ‘Housing is way too expensive.’ Why is that? Because we flooded the country with 30 million illegal immigrants who are taking houses that ought to, by right, go to American citizens,” Vance said. “And at the same time, we weren’t building enough new houses to begin with, even for the population that we had.”
There are certainly multiple reasons that the Trump administration is forging ahead with its effort to carry out mass deportations, and the White House argues that one of the best ways to fix the housing market would be to address the illegal immigration crisis.
Many of the illegal immigrants in the United States move to city centers across the country when they enter, receiving government handouts and housing. The majority of illegal immigrants are pushed to find government shelters or cheap places to rent, given the difficulty of attaining a home without legal status in the country. Some of them, however, have been able to purchase American homes thanks to multiple mortgage companies agreeing to lend money to illegal immigrants without a social security number or green card, The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/inside-the-company-financing-the-illegal-alien-takeover-of-american-homes">uncovered</a> earlier this year.
There is disagreement from economists and immigration experts on whether deporting the massive illegal population would have any measurable impact on the housing market at all. Norbert Michel, the vice president and director for the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, said he believes “the idea that illegal immigration has something to do with it is absolutely insane.”
The libertarian organization’s expert said that it’s possible illegal immigrants could have minimal effects on housing markets in certain pockets of the country, but on the national level, he said it’s a non-factor.
“Do I think that’s a national-level problem? Absolutely not,” Michel said.
E.J. Antoni, the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, agrees with Trump and Vance’s argument, saying it’s undeniable that such a large population would impact the market. He argues the mass deportation of illegal immigrants would have “the single biggest impact” on helping fix America’s housing problems.
“You can’t import over 10 million illegal aliens in a very short period of time and expect it not to have an impact on the real economy. Those people are all on the demand side of the housing equation. In other words, it’s 10 million additional people who now are looking for a place to live,” Antoni told The Daily Wire.
“This is econ 101: if you increase demand, you will increase price,” Antoni said.
Even though the vast majority of illegal immigrants are not technically in the market for owning a home, they still add pressure to the housing market. Increased demand for rental properties would increase lease prices and force more Americans to look at buying homes, Antoni argued.
“No matter which way you slice it, all of these people here increasing the demand for dwelling units is ultimately still going to have the effect of increasing the price of home ownership,” he said.
Studies have shown that illegal immigration can negatively affect the housing market.
Jason Richwine, a resident scholar at the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Daily Wire that researchers consistently find that high immigration, both legal and illegal, drives up housing costs “almost every time it’s studied.” One of the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1051137717300025">studies</a> Richwine highlighted, from the Journal of Housing Economics, found that influxes in immigration “are associated with rising rents and prices,” especially in suburban areas.
“What they looked at was not only the impact on the given housing market where immigrants were coming to, but also the spillover effect. In other words, what happens to the price of housing in the areas just outside of the places where immigrants are coming to,” Richwine said. “What they found was that immigration raises the cost directly within the market immigrants arrive in, but even more so raises the cost around the area, with the idea being that people would prefer to live away from where the immigrants are coming to.”
Antoni acknowledges that there are other factors contributing to the housing market that are in the government’s control. He highlighted regulatory burdens placed on the housing industry by the government, which “makes it more difficult and more expensive to bring houses to market.”
A National Bureau of Economic Research <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w33876/w33876.pdf">study</a> showed that construction of new homes is falling far behind the pace of previous generations. According to the study, “If the U.S. housing stock had expanded at the same rate from 2000-2020 as it did from 1980-2000, there would be 15 million more housing units.” From 2000 to 2020, while new home building was falling behind the pace of previous decades, illegal border crossings skyrocketed.
The libertarian Cato Institute, which generally opposes mass deportations, has argued that losing the illegal immigrant population may, in fact, increase housing costs because of how many of them work in construction.
The <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/jd-vance-correct-immigration-increases-housing-prices-thats-ok">article</a>, published by Cato last year in response to Vance’s comments about housing, agreed that illegal immigrants increase housing costs, but said the uptick in prices shouldn’t spark alarm or result in federal government action.
“Estimates show that about 30 percent of all construction workers are immigrants, with higher rates in California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Nevada. Deporting those workers or halting more immigrants will reduce the growth in the housing supply,” the author stated.
Antoni, the Heritage Foundation’s chief economist, disagreed with that argument.
“At the same time you have this massive influx of illegal aliens, you did not see a corresponding increase in home construction,” he said. “It was not as if all of these illegal aliens coming across the border suddenly caused a surge in the construction of new dwellings. That simply did not happen.”
Michel doesn’t just believe that illegal immigration has little to no effect on the housing market; he also rejects the premise that there’s a “housing crisis” to be fixed.
“I reject the crisis narrative from the beginning,” Michel said. “If you look at median annual housing costs as a percentage of income, it’s been pretty flat for quite a while. It’s almost exactly what it was in 2011. If you want to say there was a big bump during COVID, that’s true, but it’s come back down to the pre-pandemic level if you look at prices as a percentage of income.”
Michel pointed to some <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/us-housing-market-not-facing-crisis">data</a> to back up his argument. As of 2023, renters and first-time homebuyers were paying roughly the same percentage of their annual income on housing that they were in 2011. “It’s pretty hard to call that a crisis,” Michel said.
The cost of housing will almost certainly remain a topic of political debate for months as Republicans and Democrats prepare for the 2026 midterm elections. Nearly every young American — 97% of Gen-Z and 93% of Millennials — says they want to buy a home one day, and a staggering 84% of the younger generation say they’re delaying major life milestones like getting married or having kids until they can do so, according to a <a href="https://fortune.com/2025/11/10/gen-z-delaying-milestones-housing-affordability-crisis-no-single-fix/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Coldwell Banker report</a>.
Convincing Americans that Trump’s immigration crackdown will benefit them could be a key factor in how Americans view the president’s economic record when voters go to the polls again.

Housing Market/ICE

Will Mass Deportations Fix The Housing Market?

Deportations

Illegal Immigation

More than 400 employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development were issued layoff notices on Friday, primarily targeting an office that pushed left-wing ideology, a department official told The Daily Wire.
The federal government has been shut down for more than two weeks, with only &#8220;essential&#8221; workers reporting for duty, as Democrats refuse to grant a temporary funding extension unless Republicans add in new funding. The Trump administration said in a <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.457131/gov.uscourts.cand.457131.39.0_1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">court filing</a> that some 4,000 workers across seven agencies should be laid off instead.
A HUD official said the largest office targeted by the 442 layoffs at that agency is the Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity office, which the official said became the tip of the spear for left-wing initiatives under former President Joe Biden.
The office is tasked by law with enforcing the Civil Rights Act and processing complaints from people who say they were discriminated against in housing due to disability, race, sex, national origin, and other characteristics. The office&#8217;s budget was increased by 20% under Biden and employed nearly 600 people, yet was so focused on issues like transgenderism and dubious theories about systemic racism that it failed to process complaints about more straightforward discrimination, the official said.
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For example, the Biden administration became obsessed with the theory that racist home appraisers might be estimating homes owned by blacks at lower values than those owned by whites. The dubious theory is undermined by the fact that appraisers often don&#8217;t know the race of a homeowner, and the process is driven by formulas such as comparisons to similar, recently sold homes.
Meanwhile, when a double-amputee was blocked by his homeowners association from widening his driveway to accommodate his wheelchair, the Biden administration let his complaint about disability discrimination languish for two years, until the Trump administration intervened as an example of the kind of clear-cut discrimination that the office should be laser-focused on stamping out, the official said.
Such complaints are required by law to be processed within 100 days, but the office missed that deadline more than 70% of the time, a <a href="https://www.hudoig.gov/sites/default/files/2024-09/2024-bo-0005_508.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2024 inspector general report</a> found.
In another case, HUD&#8217;s Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity office conducted an investigation that claimed that the city of Chicago was racist against blacks and foreigners because it helped create a recycling center in the Southeast Side. The suggestion was that it was &#8220;environmental racism&#8221; to put a polluting industry in a neighborhood with many black and brown people. Then-mayor Lori Lightfoot called it &#8220;absurd&#8221; and &#8220;dared the federal government to enforce its ruling that the city&#8217;s planning and zoning laws were discriminatory,&#8221; <a href="https://blockclubchicago.org/2022/10/21/after-rejecting-claims-of-environmental-racism-city-now-moves-to-settle-civil-rights-complaint-with-feds/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Block Club Chicago</a> reported at the time. Lightfoot folded just before leaving office.
The office was poised to use similar logic to drastically change the everyday lives of hundreds of millions of Americans through a rule that held that minimum lot sizes were also discriminatory planning and zoning. That is, the &#8220;Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing&#8221; rule would effectively <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-repeals-obama-biden-rule-suburbanites-will-no-longer-be-hurt-by-low-income-housing-built-in-neighborhoods" target="_blank" rel="noopener">abolish the suburbs</a>, which are characterized by single-family homes on lots of specific sizes, by withholding huge sums of federal funding unless towns and counties allowed lots to be <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/stealth-goal-of-infrastructure-plan-could-be-to-abolish-the-suburbs-by-bribing-towns-to-change-zoning-laws" target="_blank" rel="noopener">subdivided without restriction</a>, and for dense housing to be built anywhere.
The logic was that it&#8217;s racist not to have apartments everywhere, because blacks like to live in apartments – even though the majority of Americans of all races live in the suburbs, and presumably choose to do so because they like that level of density, and want to keep it that way. The rule was introduced at the end of Barack Obama&#8217;s presidency and repealed by Trump, then reintroduced by Biden and repealed again by Trump, all before it was able to transform the fabric of America wholesale.
The HUD official said the Trump administration supports the office&#8217;s true mission and wants to re-focus on it, saying the Biden administration had begun focusing on factors that don&#8217;t appear in the Civil Rights Act, including transgenderism and a lack of ability to speak English.
HUD communications will now appear only in English, which does not constitute discrimination based on national origin, the official said.
Affected employees were given notice that layoffs would take effect in 60 days, commencing a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-laying-off-dei-employees-could-backfire-thanks-to-bizarre-federal-rules">byzantine process</a>. The official declined to say whether employees would return to work until that time should the government shutdown end, but noted that the agency has been planning the layoffs for months, and that they were not ordered by the White House.
Layoffs elsewhere also focused on offices that the Trump administration believes were not aligned with administration priorities, including <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/layoffs-hit-irs-amid-shutdown-standoff-and-theyre-bigger-than-anyone-thought" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1,400 at the Internal Revenue Service</a>, as well as 466 at the Department of Education and 187 at the Department of Energy.

HUD Secretary Eric Scott Turner

Trump Shutdown Layoffs Target Left-Wing HUD Office That Tried To Abolish The Suburbs

Government Shutdown

Forty percent of American voters believe AI will make achieving the American Dream even harder to reach. That is more than double the 16% of voters who see AI as helpful. And this isn’t abstract technophobia. This is a window into the profound anxiety many feel about economic security in an era when the traditional pathways to prosperity already seem increasingly out of reach.
A recent Rainey Center <a href="https://www.raineycenter.org/news/new-poll-voters-overwhelmingly-support-domestic-energy-independence-and-data-security">national poll of 2,011</a> likely voters reveals a pervasive pessimism about artificial intelligence (AI), along with deeper concerns about a rigged system. 
When asked about the future, 39% of respondents said AI makes them more pessimistic, compared to 20% who said it makes them more optimistic.
Remarkably, this fear is bipartisan.
Democrats, Republicans, and Independents all worry that technological disruption will compound rather than solve the challenges facing American families.
Yet, there’s reason for hope. One in five Americans sees AI’s potential to improve their economic prospects, and nearly a quarter believe it will make no difference to achieving the American Dream. These voters recognize what policymakers must internalize: AI could dramatically increase productivity, create new industries, improve healthcare outcomes, and free workers from dangerous or repetitive tasks.
The technology itself, however, isn’t the enemy. The question is whether we’ll ensure its benefits are broadly shared rather than narrowly concentrated. History shows that technological revolutions can lift entire societies when paired with smart policy. The challenge is making that happen deliberately rather than hoping it occurs by accident.
This AI anxiety doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It sits atop a foundation of economic stress and fading opportunity, particularly for younger generations. While 77% of the Silent Generation and 51% of Baby Boomers feel their lives are or were better than their parents’, only 31% of Millennials and 35% of Gen Z share this optimism. When we asked directly whether the American Dream has become more or less attainable over the past decade, an overwhelming 64% said less attainable, with one-third calling it “much less attainable.”
<div id="attachment_984319" style="width: 586px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-984319" class="size-large wp-image-984319" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-10-Oct-2025-11-46-AM-3234-576x576.jpg" alt="Credit: Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy" width="576" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-10-Oct-2025-11-46-AM-3234-576x576.jpg 576w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-10-Oct-2025-11-46-AM-3234-300x300.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-10-Oct-2025-11-46-AM-3234-150x150.jpg 150w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-10-Oct-2025-11-46-AM-3234-768x768.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-10-Oct-2025-11-46-AM-3234-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-10-Oct-2025-11-46-AM-3234-2048x2048.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px" />Credit: Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy</div>
The fear isn’t that AI will create a different future — voters fear that AI will accelerate trends already making life harder. Young Americans today face a housing market disconnected from wage growth, with 21% of Gen Z citing housing as a top national challenge compared to just 6% of Boomers. They’re burdened by education debt that earlier generations never faced. And now they’re being told that automation and AI may disrupt the very jobs they’re counting on to build their economic security.
The American Dream itself remains remarkably consistent: financial stability and homeownership top the list across all demographics. But the gap between aspiration and reality has never been wider. Only 22% of voters believe they’ve achieved the American Dream, while 36% feel it’s completely out of reach. Among Millennials, 40% believe the dream is unattainable for them.
This crisis of faith in American opportunity has political consequences. While voters give Republicans a slight edge over Democrats (39% to 33%) on supporting the American Dream, a striking 28% believe neither party is aligned with this goal. When nearly one in three Americans see no champion for their economic aspirations, we face a dangerous void in our politics.
The economy (34%) and inflation (29%) dominate voter concerns, bread-and-butter issues that AI anxiety amplifies rather than replaces. People aren’t worried about robot overlords; they’re worried about paying the mortgage, affording healthcare, and whether their children will have opportunities they did not.
Technology has always disrupted labor markets, but past disruptions occurred when basic economic mobility still functioned for most Americans. Today, AI arrives at a moment when millions already doubt that the system works for them. That timing matters enormously.
We need policies that will address both immediate economic pressures and longer-term technological change. Housing affordability, education access, and ensuring that economic growth translates into broadly shared prosperity aren’t separate from the AI question. They’re the foundation that determines whether technological change lifts us up or leaves us behind.
The American Dream isn’t dead, but it’s under siege from multiple directions. The question is whether we’ll recognize the urgency before another generation loses faith entirely.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
* * *
Sarah E. Hunt is President of the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy, a think tank and leadership community based in Washington, D.C.
Amelia Powers Gardner is a Utah County Commissioner and National Chair of the Leadership Alliance for a More Perfect Union (LAMP), a national program cultivating the next generation of conservative leaders.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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Cinematic Shot of a Father Holding His Small Daughter of His Shoulders, Helping Her to Raise the United States of America Flag to Celebrate a National Fourth of July Holiday at Their House.

New Poll: Voters Fear AI Will Make The American Dream Even Harder To Reach

Artificial Intelligence

Big Tech

Gen X

Gen Z

Millennials

Poll

Student Loans

President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration plans new measures to tackle the high cost of housing in the coming weeks, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Reuters in an interview on Monday.
Emphasizing the urgency of the situation, Bessent described it as an &#8220;all hands on deck&#8221; challenge.
Bessent told the Washington Examiner in a separate interview that Trump may declare a national housing emergency this fall to address rising prices and dwindling supply.
The housing market has been hardest hit by the U.S. central bank&#8217;s tight monetary policy stance and high housing costs are a top concern for many Americans.
The Treasury secretary told Reuters rents were now dropping, which was important for Americans who do not own their homes.
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He said he was expecting an increase in real estate transactions and home sales once interest rates began falling, which could encourage people who were locked into low mortgages to put their existing homes on the market.
Bessent said the Trump administration was also exploring ways to simplify permitting and encourage standardization to boost construction, which would boost housing supply and help to bring high costs down.
Affordability would be a big focus for the administration, Bessent said, noting Trump&#8217;s push to drive down prescription prices.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, Jeff Mason and Jasper Ward; Editing by Scott Malone, Ross Colvin and Edmund Klamann)

US-NORWAY-DIPLOMACY

Bessent: Trump May Declare National Housing Emergency

Scott Bessent

After he graduated from Vanderbilt, a man named Nathan Halberstadt began working at the Boston Consulting Group. This is a familiar path for students who attend schools that are highly ranked. Often they&#8217;re hired by one of the &#8220;Big Three&#8221; consulting companies, which on paper, means that they&#8217;ll provide useful advice for large businesses and the government.
Very quickly, though, Nathan realized what the job actually entailed. In his words, working for a big consulting group meant that you had to promote, &#8220;the bureaucratic optimization of opioid sales, mass migration, off-shoring, and DEI.&#8221; You had to churn out bogus <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imLMG7C6oF4">statistics</a> to advance anti-American agenda items — like that fake McKinsey study a few years back, which claimed that &#8220;diversity&#8221; somehow makes companies more profitable. That&#8217;s what &#8220;consulting&#8221; actually means, in practice.
New graduates from Vanderbilt aren&#8217;t really walking into companies like Boeing and Apple and blowing their minds with their unique insights. Instead, in many cases, they&#8217;re simply giving executives a pretext to do exactly what they wanted to do all along.
Seeing all this, Nathan decided to quit. Instead of manipulating data to promote the destruction of the United States, he decided to spend his time identifying statistics that actually matter. He would look through government data and try to find important connections that no one else has made before. And the other day, as you may have seen, Nathan accomplished that goal. He published this remarkable chart, which has already been cited by several members of Congress and seen by millions of people. Here it is:
<div id="attachment_958477" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-958477" class="wp-image-958477 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-05-32-PM-8972-1024x576.jpg" alt="Credit: Nathan Halberstadt" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-05-32-PM-8972-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-05-32-PM-8972-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-05-32-PM-8972-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-05-32-PM-8972-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-05-32-PM-8972-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Credit: Nathan Halberstadt</div>
It&#8217;s a graph that shows the estimated percentage of 30-year-olds who are both married and own a home. The data runs from 1950 all the way through 2025. In the 1950s, the number was more than 50%. In other words, in 1950, well over half of the 30-year-olds in this country were both married and living in a home that they owned.
But as you can see, the percentage has been steadily dropping since then, until it fell off a cliff in the 1990s. And now, in 2025, the percentage is well below 20%. In fact, according to this estimate, only around 15% of 30-year-olds are married and own a home. Something that was once commonplace in this country is now rare. 50% to 15%.
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Right off the bat, it&#8217;s impossible to look at an estimate like this without immediately asking: Why haven&#8217;t we heard these numbers before? For all of the very granular information we have about gross domestic product and unemployment numbers and per capita manufacturing output, it took a random Vanderbilt graduate to produce this particular chart. To be sure, we all knew that these numbers were bad. It was very evident that fewer young people were getting married or owning homes. But the scale, and the timing of the decline, weren&#8217;t remotely clear. Frankly, this is a lot worse than anyone realized, which is why the chart has attracted so much attention.
But the numbers were always available to anyone who wanted to look for them. All you have to do is look up the marriage data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which tabulates the &#8220;median age of first marriage&#8221; — along with Pew surveys on the percentage of people who are married at 30 — and then factor in home ownership data from the Census. It&#8217;s not a perfect calculation; some estimation is involved. We recently covered the problems with Census data and how unreliable it can be. But the overall story is pretty clear, and it&#8217;s corroborated by other sources.
In Ohio, for example, researchers at Bowling Green State University have <a href="https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/FP-25-10.html">compiled</a> similar estimates.
Amazingly, though, very few of our political leaders are talking about this. It&#8217;s not a topic of mainstream conversation at all. Making sure that Americans are getting married and acquiring homes by the age of 30 should be the urgent priority of every politician in the country. It&#8217;s hard to think of many other things that could possibly be more important. But it&#8217;s not getting anywhere near the attention it should.
To the extent that some action is being taken in Washington, it raises some unanswered questions. For example, this week a very unusual alliance <a href="https://www.wsaz.com/2025/08/02/sen-kennedy-warrens-new-bill-aims-build-more-affordable-housing/">formed</a> in Washington between Elizabeth Warren — the socialist from Massachusetts — and John Kennedy, the Republican from Louisiana. The two senators have introduced legislation called the &#8220;Build Now Act,&#8221; which would withhold taxpayer funds from states that don&#8217;t build enough housing, while sending taxpayer money to states that build more housing. Unlike most proposed legislation that you hear about, this particular bill actually has a good chance of passing, because it was just unanimously approved by a Senate committee. Here&#8217;s Kennedy&#8217;s explanation of the plan:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
It is stunning that the median age of a first-time home buyer in America today is 38.
We’ve got a problem.
By incentivizing cities to slash red tape and start building homes again, my Build Now Act would help open the door to homeownership. <a href="https://t.co/LfCV7k3Y1T">pic.twitter.com/LfCV7k3Y1T</a>
— John Kennedy (@SenJohnKennedy) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenJohnKennedy/status/1950234826381918263?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 29, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @SenJohnKennedy/X
As a general rule, whenever Democrats and Republicans — and in this case, a conservative like John Kennedy and a socialist like Elizabeth Warren — team up to promote legislation, it&#8217;s usually a good idea to be skeptical. The only ideas that have bipartisan support in Washington are bad ones, generally speaking. And as we all know, socialists are well-known for making housing even less affordable, by introducing high-minded plans to manipulate markets (as New York City is about to discover the hard way).
That said, more housing is obviously a good idea. Increasing the supply of housing usually means that prices will go down. That&#8217;s basic economics. And although it&#8217;s reasonable to be concerned about the federal government throwing taxpayer money around, this is one of those rare times where it makes sense. Certainly, the federal government helped many homeowners in the 1950s, with the GI bill and so on.
At the same time, it&#8217;s reasonable to ask whether this kind of legislation will simply provide incentives for the creation of, say, more dilapidated housing for the homeless to use as drug dens, or more rental units for neighborhoods that are already flooded with them. This is a problem that&#8217;s becoming increasingly apparent, as you may have noticed. Large institutions are buying up homes in suburbs and renting them, instead of putting them up for sale. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Priced out: More Americans renting rather than buying" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5lW0ruPVNbg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Credit: NBC News/YouTube.com
Constructing new housing doesn&#8217;t necessarily address this particular problem, if the houses are being purchased by institutions and rented out as apartments. A lot depends on why the homes are being constructed, and where they&#8217;re located. Kennedy&#8217;s bill does have provisions that provide incentives for new construction in high-demand areas, but again, you still might wind up with apartment complexes where you actually want single-family homes.
That&#8217;s not to disparage this particular bill, or to declare that it can&#8217;t possibly help matters. But it&#8217;s safe to say that this legislation won&#8217;t come close to solving the underlying problem, which again, is that young people aren&#8217;t getting married and can&#8217;t afford homes. Those are problems with a lot of different causes — probably too many to list. Compared to the 1950s, we have tens of millions more illegal aliens living inside our borders. We&#8217;ve devalued the dollar to an almost unprecedented degree. We&#8217;ve opened up our job market to the entire world, driving down employment. And on and on. There are also many cultural factors that have — in many cases deliberately, by design — make marriage and family life seem less appealing to younger generations.
But there is one aspect of this new data that&#8217;s worth homing in on, because it does suggest one practical way forward. In the 1950s, roughly 90% of 30-year-olds were married, and more than 50% were homeowners. By contrast, right now, only around 50% of 30-year-olds are married, and roughly 30% are home-owners. So both numbers dropped by huge margins. But the marriage decline has been drastically more significant than the drop in home ownership. More than any other time in this country&#8217;s history, men and women are choosing not to get married. And there&#8217;s reason to believe that this broader cultural trend is what&#8217;s convincing a lot of young adults to forgo home ownership, as well.
After all, if you&#8217;re single, the prospect of paying most of your savings to a bank in the form of a down payment for a house isn&#8217;t exactly appealing. You don&#8217;t need all of that space for yourself and your dog. Before I was married, I never even considered trying to buy a home. As soon as I got married, I felt a sudden and very strong pull to buy a home and have a piece of land that we could call our own. Within about three years of getting married, we bought our first home. But for single people the financial sacrifice seems irrational and unnecessary, so if they have any extra money to throw around, they’re more likely to put it into Bitcoin or something else instead. On the other hand, if you&#8217;re intent on starting a family, then the cost of a mortgage makes a lot more sense. People can make it work, in many cases. I&#8217;ve said before that home ownership is attainable for almost anyone with a full-time job and decent credit. It&#8217;s often a matter of priorities. And as we look at the plummeting numbers of homeowners who are young and married, it&#8217;s a fact that needs to be restated. In this case, as in many other cases, decline is actually a choice.
And make no mistake — this is decline. Millions of young adults (who aren&#8217;t even that young at 30) have no skin in the game, no real stake in the country or its future. Getting married, starting a family, and owning property are the basic fundamental pillars of the American dream. They&#8217;re the starting point for a fulfilling and productive life, and a well-ordered society. As this new data reveals, most young people were able to achieve those milestones in the 1950s. But they&#8217;re not achieving them anymore. And those numbers are only getting worse by the year. Things are trending in the wrong direction, and quickly. If we want the kind of country we had in the 1950s — which is to say a country that has the potential to survive for another century — then one way or another, that needs to change.

Suburban homes photo

This One Shocking Stat Proves That The American Dream Is Dying

Marriage

Mortgages

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