Millennials and Gen Z'ers discouraged by housing prices are about to get a break.
Young families—and young people wanting to start families—have been locked out of the American Dream because home prices exploded under Biden.
Nearly two-thirds of Gen Z adults believe they will never be able to buy a home. The culprits: Central government planners, advocates of mass illegal immigration, Wall Street investors, others who want people to believe that "you'll own nothing and be happy."
President Trump has been working to make things easier, especially for first-time home-buyers. Last Friday, he signed an executive order to eliminate unnecessary federal regulatory burdens that jack up housing costs, and another to promote access to mortgage credit.
Earlier this year, he fulfilled a campaign promise to "ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes." Huge funds had been grabbing these homes before individual families could even look at them, then renting out the houses that families wanted to buy.
Trump said his goal was to increase the number of homes available to first-time and younger buyers by removing Wall Street from the single-family market and lowering home prices.
He has worked to lower borrowing costs and broaden mortgage terms to keep monthly payments down, with an innovative 50-year fixed mortgage.
He announced a new policy for first-time buyers to qualify for mortgages by making down-payments with their 401(K) or other retirement accounts. His team is looking for tax incentive frameworks to make home ownership more affordable.
The president has instructed his staff "to codify these policies so that large institutional investors do not acquire single-family homes."
Congress is catching up. Last week, the Senate voted 89-10 to lower costs by banning Wall Street investment funds from buying up single-family homes. Several conservative senators voted nay, but the White House has indicated that Trump will sign it.
Trump has been getting rid of the immigration problem that's pushing up housing costs, but has slowed down the mass deportations that he promised.
Earlier this month, his Housing and Urban Development Department started reviewing roughly 200,000 tenants flagged for citizenship and eligibility issues and tightening the rules for federal housing programs.
Trump's next job was to fix inflation.
Under Biden, the worst inflation in 40 years crushed affordability. In 2020, a family making under $60,000 could afford the median home. By 2024, that number had exploded to more than $100,000.
Then came the Fed's panic rate hikes. Mortgage rates shot toward 8%. Millions of Americans who locked in 3% mortgages stopped selling, freezing supply and pushing prices even higher.
Trump stabilized inflation in his second term. Rates began easing. Mortgage payments started falling. For a typical buyer, even a one-point drop in rates can mean hundreds of dollars per month back in their pocket.
That's real relief — not a government handout that distorts the market.
Now he's gone after the Wall Street predators. When private equity buys 500 homes in a city, that leaves 500 fewer homes for families to buy.
That reduces ownership supply. Prices rise. Communities change. Trump moved to stop it. That's populism done right.
Instead of fixing bad policies, the Biden administration scapegoated the software that owners use to better understand what their properties are worth.
The software, which gets the blame, analyzes market data to give owners rough pricing estimates on their homes. Trump's opponents, covering for Wall Street donors and their own failed policies, reasoned that enough people were skeptical about AI to buy this deflection.
That's why Trump's Justice Department stepped back from Biden-era attacks on pricing technology. Radicals like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are still hard at work scapegoating the software, which, during the Trump 2.0 affordability rebound, has even recommended lower rental prices.
President Trump, a renowned builder and real estate tycoon, has brought the focus back where it belongs: protecting families, making it possible for Millennials and Gen-Z to start families and buy homes, and keeping the American Dream within reach for all American citizens.
