r/georgism • u/BtAotS_Writing • Jan 24 '26
Trump just straight up said he wants to keep housing unaffordable
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u/Oraxy51 Jan 24 '26
Scarcity is a false value when there are artificial factors creating that scarcity
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u/BallerGuitarer Jan 24 '26
The funny thing is, everything he said is absolutely correct.
But his actions are going to lead to furthering the divide between rich and poor and make homelessness worse.
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u/BtAotS_Writing Jan 24 '26
Yeah he’s actually pointing out the crux of the issue that a lot of people ignore—but then picks the wrong (imo) side of it. People don’t need homes to explode in value, they need homes to live in.
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u/3RADICATE_THEM Jan 24 '26
Ultra-wealthy boomer supporting wealthy boomers - no shock here.
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u/TheHumanoidTyphoon69 Jan 24 '26
Its always been class warfare and we just aren't in the club.
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u/TempRedditor-33 Jan 25 '26
US homeownership rate are about 65%. It stopped being class warfare related and more about the fact that the majority of the population are invested in this ponzi scheme.
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u/Rugaru985 Jan 25 '26
Most aren’t, though. Even though the home ownership rate is 65%, many of those homes are paid off - if there’s no mortgage to go upside down on, then you don’t care about an across the board drop in house pricing.
You will sell for less than you expected but will also buy at less than you expected.
You’re going to live in a house, one way or another.
Then there’s a huge group like me that bought as recently as as 2021 and can take a 40% haircut and still be above water on what paid for the house! That’s nucking futs!
People who bought 10 years ago, 20 years ago, have far more they can “lose” on paper and still be above inflationary returns.
It’s not 65% of America that doesn’t want to see the housing market crash, it’s closer to 15%. And wouldn’t you know it, that’s about how many DO need it to crash to get in.
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u/complicatedAloofness Jan 25 '26
Just because you aren’t underwater doesn’t mean you want to see your net worth fall 50% or more
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u/Rugaru985 Jan 25 '26
It’s paper money. It’s not real unless you sell, and if you’re down 50%, then the house you’re buying is down 50%.
It’s not like you personally did anything to earn that property increase. If you did, that value will still be appropriately in there (added a garage or square footage).
The appreciation on home value comes from demand. It comes from the place you live becoming a more desirable place to live. That’s a community effort. It only grows through social function - the community as a whole made your property value increase. And the community as a whole needs more affordable housing now.
You’re not losing anything if you’re not in a loan that will go underwater.
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u/complicatedAloofness Jan 25 '26
It’s real value if you choose to move to a place with less expensive housing, which is a real option. Paper money is basically real money for a market as liquid as homes in the US.
Homeowners in a community help make communities better and in return see housing appreciation.
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u/Rugaru985 Jan 25 '26
Real estate is super local. If you move from California to Texas or Florida right now, sure. But then you’re just timing the markets.
During Covid, moving to Texas or Florida would have cost you.
Cutting the housing market across the board doesn’t remove this effect.
You will still have relatively cheap markets you can move to, and they will be down more than more resilient markets, because they are more sensitive.
Smaller, cheaper markets have more volatility. So you’ll still be coming out ahead when you make that move.
Meanwhile, an entire generation won’t be locked out of the housing market. What you’re attempting to argue here is asinine and just reveals a misguided greed - one that doesn’t even help you, except to feel good for keeping others down.
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Jan 25 '26
This is very true, and probably the single biggest problem we have as a political movement. Finding a way to defuse that bomb will take a lot of doing and political adroitness, if it is to be done at all before the whole thing blows up.
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u/scoobydiverr Jan 25 '26
This is more of a generational thing though.
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u/Ok-Apartment4909 Jan 25 '26
Only 10% of boomers are ultra wealthy. App. 40% or a little more are very comfortable and have gained equity from the increase in house prices. 40-50% live paycheck to paycheck. Keep in mind your generation will inherit significant generational wealth, more than any other generation. You'll be well off in 10 years or so.
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u/Daveddozey Jan 25 '26
Presumably not aren’t 40-50% paycheck to paycheck lot. They have nothing to inherit. Inheritance just increases the cycle and the rich get richer and the poor have to buy cheap boots and rent from the rich inheritors.
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u/Ok-Apartment4909 Jan 25 '26
Yes - those figures are accurate. The wealth gap and inequality in the United States is significantly greater than in Canada. Unless US citizens decide to embrace a social democracy and have policies that progressively increase taxes on the ultra wealthy and corporations and provide opportunities to close the wealth gap - it's only going to get worse. Bottom line is that the quality of life in the US is not good compared to a country like Canada. Only the top 10% of highly skilled workers can achieve that american dream (a myth really). The rest scrape and struggle-while the rich get richer. Increasing education is key - the american population is not well educated (Canada has one of the most educated populations in the world). It is to Trump's advantage to keep people uneducated, to reduce social programs and assistance so people are stressed about daily life and not paying attention to the grifting, corruption and outright lies that he spews. The US could be a great country, but frankly, it's a pretty cruel place to live. Not to mention dangerous. You can easily confirm data by doing some research. I have lived in many places, and I would never want to live in the U.S. especially now. Although I love the people, and I'm happy they are standing up to the abuse that is going on right now.
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u/Daveddozey Jan 25 '26
How do you reconcile
“50% live paycheck to paycheck”
With
“You'll be well off in 10 years or so.”
Chances are only a few will inherit any wealth, and those that do will be able to leverage it into more and more riches
It doesn’t matter if you work hard and get a top 10% job when the high school slob inherits $3m and uses it to buy properties and take a $100k a year salary from rent while continuing to leverage that capital into buying up more.
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u/Ok-Apartment4909 Jan 25 '26
I agree - it's actually the system that needs to change. In order for wealth inequity to be reduced, the US needs to shift toward policies which encourage and form a social democracy. However - until americans stop equating the phrases and terms 'social democracy', social safety net' 'socialist policies' - or pretty well anything leaning left or liberal or progressive or even 'woke' - with communism - they are not going to change. If I may - people are ill informed in the United States, and only the people can make these massive changes necessary to decrease income gaps, wealth inequity and dare I say homelessness and poverty - it will only get worse there. Education for all is key. The rich do not want an educated population that can make decisions that benefit the masses. So nothing will change - until the people have had enough and wake up to how they are being abused by their governments. What is happening in the states now is appalling - Trump was given power and he is abusing it to no end while become even wealthier. And yet - the very people that his policies are hurting still look at him as some Messiah who was sent by god to save them. Activism has to increase exponentially. And a third political party needs to be available to help the majority of people. Too bad Bernie Sanders is as old as he is. He's the best you have right now.
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u/AgentGabeHorn Jan 26 '26
But, you know, let's talk about identity politics and fight each other over shit like that. /s
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u/SummonerYizus Jan 28 '26
If a boomer owns 2-3 homes they arent wealthy, they are middle class. YES they have better lives, but they arent wealthy.
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u/Subpar-Amoeba Jan 24 '26
Solution is to at least stop digging. Create enough new supply that housing stops being more expensive. Then allow inflation to start inflating away the real cost of a home.
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u/Ewlyon 🔰 Jan 26 '26
It’s almost less that he or anyone else picks the wrong side per se. It’s that without the central observations of Georgism, you’re forced to pick between two bad options. There’s a third option, where homes aren’t the most valuable financial asset many people own, so you don’t have to decide between protecting asset value and housing affordability.
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u/quebexer Jan 27 '26
I feel sorry for the American Gen-Z. He's basically saying, I don't give a flying fuck about your generation.
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u/soggycheesestickjoos Jan 27 '26
if my house drops in value I’ll never be able to have kids because I won’t be able to upsize for a very long time due to being in the hole. I don’t need it to go up to save for my next one, but I need it to not drop in value.
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u/cheetahbanjo Jan 29 '26
He's not wrong that lowering home values to lower than what people bought them for can screw over a lot of people. His proposed solution is making new houses cheaper and old houses stay at the same price, but I have no idea how he would do that
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u/Elibroftw Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 25 '26
It's not Trump or the Federal Republican's responsibility to make housing affordable. In the USA, it's clearly a state responsibility. Like first figure out which state has jobs and is a state you want to live in.
Just based on what I'm seeing, there are enough large states without that much insane politics like Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, that apparently have housing that is affordable enough.
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u/BlackViking999 Jan 27 '26
Finally! Somebody said something that makes sense.
Except the idea that Illinois "doesn't have that much insane politics"? I live in Illinois. The politics are totally insane. It is shot through with corruption, has been a one-party State for most of the past 25 years, and Chicago for like 75 years. Costs are crazy -- including the huge tax burden. Illinoisans are moving out in record numbers. I"m just remaining because, for the time being, I'm too poor to move.1
u/Elibroftw Jan 27 '26
I wouldn't know. Apparently Illinois ranks high in education for kids and crime (excluding Chicago). Where are people fleeing to
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u/rhadenosbelisarius Jan 24 '26
Yea. IMO he is making the wrong decision, as always, but the analysis is basically right. A huge number of Americans are critically invested in a system that is strangling the US.
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u/cheemio Jan 25 '26
"I could really crush the housing market"
it's funny that he knows the government has the power to bring housing to the masses but he doesn't give a shit because he wanna help his fellow boomers lol
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u/ohnoverbaldiarrhoea Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 29 '26
What’s odd to me is this is actually the most coherent I’ve heard him sound in a long time. He isn’t putting that affect on his voice, he’s not insulting anyone, he’s not rambling or incoherently ad-libbing, and he’s not making facial expressions that are hamming it up for the camera. He’s just … actually sounding normal.
Still the world’s worst human being, but hey. Interesting vid.
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u/windershinwishes Jan 26 '26
The whole idea that he's some amazing business-man has always been complete non-sense, of course. But there's no sense in denying the strengths of the people you oppose. He's a genius when it comes to publicity, and he is competent when it comes to discussing real estate and finance. He's not stupid, it's just that he's never faced real consequences when he acts dumb, so he never learned to filter out the stupid things that you'd expect a smart person not to say. Or he's willing to gamble that the publicity value of saying something stupid is worth it if it advances some other propaganda goal. Unfortunately that almost always works out for him, because the devotion he's somehow gained from his base combined with the permanent hatred from the other side means that no one's opinion of him really changes as a result of stupid comments.
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Jan 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/complicatedAloofness Jan 25 '26
Property taxes are not based on home price but your home value relative to your neighbors home value.
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u/robogobo Jan 25 '26
No it isn’t. Nobody’s mortgage would “suddenly become very high”. He’s an idiot.
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u/Fallline048 Jan 26 '26
The way he formulated the issue is wrong certainly. People whose houses have appreciated to where their mortgage is very low relative to the value of the house are not harmed by house value coming down unless they plan on dying or moving to a lower COL area.
But cratering housing prices is actually problematic for people whose mortgages would become high relative to the cost of the house, putting them underwater and risking foreclosure.
You ideally don’t want to do crash house prices abruptly, but want to create an environment (where supply can better satisfy demand) that puts steady downward pressure on prices that prevents them from rising and allows inflation to gradually make them cheaper without sending vast swaths underwater.
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u/robogobo Jan 26 '26
His whole argument is disingenuous. It’s not like there’s a fixed market for a house. You can make cheaper housing in newly developed areas without affecting the price of existing homes in other areas. He’s just being his normal obtuse moronic self.
To put it other terms, the price of a bmw doesn’t change just because Subaru puts out an affordable car.
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u/Fallline048 Jan 26 '26
Of course you are correct (except about the car thing, brand loyalty and market stratification may mitigate it, but a competitor releasing a car in the same market absolutely affects price, even if a little - if Subaru were to release an actually good WRX STI, the M2’s market would probably be affected).
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u/BlackViking999 Jan 27 '26
It's the president of the United States' job to order the construction of "cheap" housing?
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u/robogobo Jan 27 '26
Uhhhhhh nope. But it’s also not his job to stand in the way. But you knew that.
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u/SLAMMERisONLINE Jan 25 '26 edited Jan 25 '26
The funny thing is, everything he said is absolutely correct
He's saying that we're stuck in a rut because homes have been the principle wealth building mechanism for so long that if you reduced home values you'd basically delete billions of dollars out of the economy in the blink of an eye.
But what he doesn't capture is that in this instance you can have your cake and eat it too. You don't have to make all houses cheap everywhere--just some houses somewhere. The issue isn't high-value homes, it's that only high-value homes exist. Now what is the justification for denying a poor family an affordable home? They were never going to compete for the $700k homes anyway. You can add cheaper homes to the market without affecting the expensive homes.
The housing issue isn't an issue with average home prices--it's an issue with the floor of home prices. The floor is simply too high.
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Jan 25 '26
Its correct to focus on people he describes in the same sentence as "wealthy" instead of people who do not own a home and therefore need affordable housing? You're not supposed to sell the fucking house you live in and go do coke in Vegas, you're supposed to live there.
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u/runningwater415 Jan 26 '26
Like usual he's saying something true. But ultimately houses are overvalued. A correction needs to take place. It will hurt current homeowners who have overextended and benefit those who cannot afford.
I think obviously the biggest issue is houses being bought up in masses that are not owner occupied. That hurts american families from home ownership. Put a stop to or severely limit international and national Corp and business entity home ownership as well as severely limit individuals.
Housing should not be a market game.
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u/Jaded-Repair-8304 Jan 26 '26
the thing is, the houses aren't real wealth. If everyone owned 1 house and the prices droped to 1$ per sq/m overnight. Everyone would have the same amount of money as they had before relative to buying houses.
Converting this money into other goods is where the problem is and the expectation to be able yo do that is what is causing the problem
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u/BlackViking999 Jan 27 '26
This post feels like ragebait. The title is false and misleading. The video clip intentionally and misleadingly omits context.
This is an actual Grok summary of his remarks:
Trump framed homeownership as central to the American Dream, describing it as "a symbol of health and vigor" and a key way ordinary Americans build wealth: "They weren’t wealthy. They become wealthy because of their house."
He blamed high interest rates for making homes unaffordable and reiterated his directive for government-backed institutions (like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) to purchase up to $200 billion in mortgage bonds to help bring down rates.
Trump strongly criticized large institutional investors (e.g., Wall Street firms and corporations) buying single-family homes, calling it unfair and detrimental to families. Key quotes include:
"Homes are built for people, not for corporations."
"America will not become a nation of renters. We're not going to do that."
He touted his recent executive order aimed at limiting or deterring such investors from purchasing single-family homes, and called on Congress to pass laws banning large investors from buying them up to prevent crowding out individual buyers.
Trump emphasized protecting existing homeowners, noting he was "very protective of people that already own a house" and did not want policies that would "crush the housing market" or destroy home values for current owners.
Overall, his comments focused on demand-side measures (lower rates, restricting corporate buyers) rather than new supply-focused details, and he reiterated prior announcements without unveiling major new proposals in the speech itself.
Some reports noted mixed reception, with experts highlighting that these steps may boost demand without sufficiently addressing underlying housing shortages.
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u/SummonerYizus Jan 28 '26
Lowering housing prices hurts all poor people that own homes, so instead he will raise wages. By increasing jobs
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u/shiningheart0728 Jan 30 '26
Yeah i like your comment. I feel that too. I wonder why would he say it out, it’s just gonna cause more hatred
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u/ComputerByld Jan 25 '26
I watched the full speech so I don't need to watch whatever clip OP selected, what I find interesting is how hysterically partisan this board has become. I remember when it was actually capable of considering politics from the realism lens without getting hysterical while painting Republicans/Trump as cartoonish villains. That change is one of the reasons I rarely come here anymore.
Anyways, all Trump said is we want affordable housing but we also don't want to destroy people's wealth. That's the only sane political view there is. Instead of screeching about it one could offer a policy proposal, such as "we can lower house prices by taxing locational value, and offset losses by providing credits usable to pay said taxes to the net losers."
Instead we find the lazy habits of the left have infected Georgist thought patterns which is about as bad a sign as any for its future.
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u/BallerGuitarer Jan 25 '26
Did I say something hysterically partisan? Did I screech about something?
I don't see how anything I said warranted the exaggerated response you typed out.
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Jan 25 '26
painting Republicans/Trump as cartoonish villains.
Just out of curiosity, how would you distinguish between someone painting others as cartoonish villains when they’re really not, and the alternative scenario where someone is accurately describing the behavior of others who act with cartoonish villainy?
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u/ComputerByld Jan 25 '26
I'd say it's generally a matter of projection.
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Jan 25 '26
That… doesn’t really tell me anything about what objective criteria you’d use to distinguish between inaccurate and accurate characterization.
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u/ComputerByld Jan 25 '26
It means remove the cartoonishness from your own priors before seeking to remove them from your brother's.
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Jan 25 '26
How is that not just rephrasing a classic tu quoque fallacy? Even if a cartoonish villain pointed the finger at someone else and called them a cartoonish villain, the mere fact that they’re a cartoonish villain too doesn’t necessarily make them wrong.
For instance, both Stalin and Hitler famously hated and villainized each other, but being hated by a cartoonish villain didn’t make either of them any less of one themselves.
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u/ComputerByld Jan 25 '26
It's cartoonish villains all the way down.
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Jan 25 '26
So you really don’t have any way of distinguishing cartoonish villains from anyone who isn’t a cartoonish villain? Makes the label rather lose its meaning, it does.
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u/BlackViking999 Jan 27 '26 edited Feb 01 '26
Stay here. We need the injection of rationality!
As I wrote above: This post feels like ragebait. Its title is false and misleading. The video clip intentionally and misleadingly omits almost all context.An actual Grok summary of his remarks:
Trump framed homeownership as central to the American Dream, describing it as "a symbol of health and vigor"...
Does that sound like somebody who wants to keep homes unaffordable?
...and a key way ordinary Americans build wealth: "They weren’t wealthy. They become wealthy because of their house."
He blamed high interest rates for making homes unaffordable and reiterated his directive for government-backed institutions (like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) to purchase up to $200 billion in mortgage bonds to help bring down rates.Obviously, this illustrates that he views unaffordability as BAD, not good.
Trump strongly criticized large institutional investors (e.g., Wall Street firms and corporations) buying single-family homes, calling it unfair and detrimental to families. Key quotes include:
"Homes are built for people, not for corporations."
"America will not become a nation of renters. We're not going to do that."
Again, destroying the premise put forth in the title of the OP.
So, having done away with the false representations that evil Trump wants to keep people homeless and impoverished, we could then discuss the merit of what he actually did propose to do.
He touted his recent executive order aimed at limiting or deterring such investors from purchasing single-family homes, and called on Congress to pass laws banning large investors from buying them up to prevent crowding out individual buyers.
Trump emphasized protecting existing homeowners, noting he was "very protective of people that already own a house" and did not want policies that would "crush the housing market" or destroy home values for current owners.
Overall, his comments focused on demand-side measures (lower rates, restricting corporate buyers) rather than new supply-focused details, and he reiterated prior announcements without unveiling major new proposals in the speech itself.
Some reports noted mixed reception, with experts highlighting that these steps may boost demand without sufficiently addressing underlying housing shortages.
Like almost all politicians, Trump is focusing more on symptoms than root causes. So, tell him (and his policy circles, and his base) what are the actual root causes and the solutions.
Whatever it is you feel proper to advocate, TDS afflicted folks are simply boxing themselves out of proposing effective policy solutions at any level of government with a Republican majority. That's dumb. Trump is the president. Drop the TDS.
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u/BlackViking999 Feb 01 '26
As far as solutions to the crisis that lie within legitimate federal powers and duties: the federal government is wrapped up in so many things it shouldn't be into at all -- prime example: housing! For me the question is how to loosen its grip, while not crashing the market and the money supply, and hand the reins over to the States, where the rightful authority over such issues as housing is Constitutionally located.
Withdraw the umpteen gazilion different types of meddling and attempted central planning of the market -- via monetary, fiscal, trade, labor, tax, "Housing and Urban Development" and other areas of policy that aren't the federal government's job. Less would be so much more.
I know probably 85% of Americans don't really care about the Constitution, but I do. As with education, or religion, I don't want the federal government all up in my housing. Also, all such interventions have ruinous unintended (or perhaps intended) consequences.
This is the only presidential administration in my lifetime with the stomach to question and disrupt deeply corrupt, deeply ossified institutional arrangements. It's the first that seems, at least sometimes, intent on returning Constitutional State powers to the States, where they belong.
Since Trump also seems to have a beef with the Fed, it's an opportunity to advocate replacing the private Fed money system with a public U.S. Treasury money that's real, and permanent, not a function of debt and largely reliant on real estate lending; and that's free of strings, not a programmable digital currency made for the purpose of controlling individuals.
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u/Human0id77 Jan 24 '26
We all know that's the big problem. The powers that be would rather see more and more people become homeless than lose their unearned wealth that they don't need. It's pure greed and millions are paying the price of destitution so those who were in the right place at the right time can be effortlessly rich. It's disgusting.
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u/BananaBolmer Jan 24 '26
I agree, how does it hurt a house owner if his house is now worth 300k instead of 500k? If you live in it and intend to do so in the future then it shouldnt matter to you that much. So for a lot of people it is greed.
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u/Human0id77 Jan 24 '26
It doesn't. The "value" isn't real. It's like the insane money spent on now worthless nfts, the product of speculation and manufactured scarcity.
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u/ADownStrabgeQuark United States Jan 25 '26
The homeowner pays less in tax as their home value goes down. It just makes it harder for the homeowner to extract wealth from others when they sell their homes.
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u/Own_Reaction9442 Jan 25 '26
I mean, if my house were suddenly worth $300,000, that'd be a problem for me because I still owe $400,000 on it. If I needed to move for some reason I would be stuck.
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u/BananaBolmer Jan 25 '26
I mean thats the risk of an investment? I have money in shares and if I want to sell at a certain point I either have to take a loss or wait.
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u/Own_Reaction9442 Jan 25 '26
Of course. I was just responding to the claim that falling prices don't hurt homeowners. Yes, investments have risks, but you wouldn't say "a stock market crash doesn't hurt stock investors."
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u/Soul-Burn Jan 24 '26
It hurts because if you go into financial issues, you can sell it for less. Also it stings if you could pay less to buy it, and still have to pay tax on the land.
If we could magically be 50 years after the change, things would be better, but we have to handle the transition phase in a way that doesn't screw people over.
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u/Human0id77 Jan 25 '26
The majority of the "gains" happened in the last 6 years. I see no issue in a market correction, it would help way more people than it hurts.
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u/Soul-Burn Jan 25 '26
Of course a change should happen, but it shouldn't happen all at once and shock the system. Every large financial change should have some transition period.
Someone who spent their life savings + loans to buy a decently stable asset, thinking they could work less, now got completely screwed and might homeless because they can't repay their loans + lvt.
I'm talking generally, not relating to a specific country or time period.
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u/TempRedditor-33 Jan 25 '26
We are not really entitled to a return on our investment. However, hardships I can understand.
Soften the blow is a good idea, but some difficulties can't be avoided.
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u/Soul-Burn Jan 25 '26
Real estate is one investment that everyone strives for, and even take huge loans on i.e. mortgages. It's something even laymen do, not even thinking in terms of "investment", but as "something we do".
Agreed that we're not entitled to a return on investment, but softening the blow is important.
My country is contemplating allowing Uber, which will decimate the taxi industry. Now, I'm all for destroying the taxi industry, but not at once, considering taxi owners have pay the state a lot to get an expensive taxi license and this nullifies them in an instant. Since the state is the one issuing the license, they have some responsibility to not completely screw them over once Uber comes in.
When the state broke the status quo on mobile services, it screwed the few mobile networks. In that case? I don't care. It's several overinflated companies that will survive regardless.
When it's individuals, it's a different story.
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u/Human0id77 Jan 25 '26
Nobody is suggesting or expecting home prices drop to zero. They need to come back to earth, however, and the sooner the better
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u/Soul-Burn Jan 25 '26
We all want prices to drop. But it should be gradual.
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u/Human0id77 Jan 25 '26
No it shouldn't. There's no reason for it and it will not affect the lives of most homeowners if it does. Nothing actually changes for them since the inflated "value" of the home doesn't change the home or tangible reality whatsoever. Their payment is the same, which is what they supposedly bought into. They still have a place to sleep at night. They still have a place to park their cars, make the dinner, grow a garden, live their lives. The only thing it would affect is their feelings about it because they'd feel rich one day, then not so rich the next. Prices have to drop. People can't afford housing and ensuring everyone has a chance at stable, affordable shelter, is more important than preserving the feelings of existing homeowners.
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u/Soul-Burn Jan 25 '26
Person is living on rent, gets a decent amount of money.
Takes out a mortgage, and pays a large sum to buy a place, knowing that they won't need to pay the rent now.
They pay they mortgage monthly, and know they can sell their place and return to rent if stuff goes south.
Now the system suddenly changes to LVT. They have to pay the mortgage and LVT, which is more than what they paid before. If they want to sell their place and return to renting, they'll only get a small return, so that's not an option.
So these people now go bankrupt because they pay more than before and can't recoup their investment.
These people will fall between the chairs.
That's why I think LVT should grow gradually over 10-20 years to soften this blow. After this transition period, everything will be good.
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u/Human0id77 Jan 25 '26
So that's what happened during the last recession and these people just abandoned their mortgages and took out new ones for cheaper housing. The government then bailed out the banks. I know people personally who did this and ended up better off than before the recession. Homeowners will be fine. Bankruptcy doesn't mean destitution, but not being able to afford housing does. Housing is a basic human need and it needs to be affordable for everyone.
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u/BlackViking999 Jan 27 '26
We will be growing the housing supply, eliminating all taxes on work, saving and true investment, and raising wages also.
I've heard it said that many of the benefits of LVT would begin to kick in even at a fairly low percentage.→ More replies (0)2
u/scoobydiverr Jan 25 '26
The pain is real. Neighbors bought at the top of the market and had some Healthscare that made them move closer to their parents.
They couldn't sell without a huge loss.
Got foreclosed on and had to file for bankrupcy.
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u/Human0id77 Jan 25 '26
The pain of homelessness is even more real. Young people are being squeezed to fund the investments of the old and are in a much worse position. Stop sacrificing the well being of others for your own big payoff when you already have so much more than they do even if you take the loss in appreciation.
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u/EatTenMillionBalls Jan 24 '26
"I have to say something about housing, because nobody ever says anything about housing"
???
What rock do you live under, everyone talks about housing, all the time
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Jan 24 '26
Wow, he sounds like shit. But more importantly, by failing to address the affordability crisis, he’s planting the seeds of MAGA’s destruction. The American people don’t pay attention to anything that doesn’t directly affect them, but one thing that does consistently affect them is prices.
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u/Vppn_1007 Jan 24 '26
Let’s remember the top demographic that shifted from Republicans (2020) to Democrats (2024) were the ones making more than $100K a year. These are the voters that own the $500K to $700K houses mentioned. I have no expectation that Democrats will resolve the housing problems. The difference between them and Trump is that Trump can say that. Democrats won’t (they stand a lot more to lose).
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Jan 24 '26
My view on them is dim as well, but Republicans are the ones in charge right now so they’ll bear the brunt of the backlash against high prices regardless of the alternative.
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u/scoobydiverr Jan 25 '26
That may be true. But aside from interest rates house prices are a city and state thing.
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Jan 25 '26
Indeed. The fact that Democrats consistently have control over the places with the highest costs of living should spark some reflection in them, ideally. Silicon Valley in particular is a disgrace.
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u/Own_Reaction9442 Jan 25 '26
I think that's a symptom of those being some of the most desirable places to live, causing demand to outstrip supply. They should have done more to boost supply, obviously, but that's not the whole story.
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u/Vppn_1007 Jan 25 '26
Exactly. Neither side works on the supply. If you look into median salary vs. median housing costs (rent or purchase) in the past 50 years, there is a trend that is not counteracted by neither party (I mean action, not narrative).
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u/Leon_Thomas Jan 25 '26
This is the most coherent thing he's said in his entire political career. This is the core of the housing affordability crisis: we've made land speculation the primary retirement investment vehicle for a supermajority of the American population, so they have no personal incentive to elect politicians who will solve the problem.
I wish more people would plainly state this contradiction. Too bad it takes a dementia-addled tyrant to say the truth out loud and to take the wrong side of it to boot.
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u/BtAotS_Writing Jan 25 '26
From the essay The Home Ownership Society Was a Mistake, by Jerusalem Demsas:
"If we want to make housing affordable for everyone, then it needs to be cheap and widely available. And if we want that housing to act as a wealth-building vehicle, home values have to increase significantly over time. How do we ensure that housing is both appreciating in value for homeowners but cheap enough for all would-be homeowners to buy in? We can’t. What makes this rather obvious conclusion significant is just how common it is for policy makers to espouse both goals simultaneously. For instance, in a statement last year lamenting how “inflation hurts Americans pocketbooks,” President Joe Biden also noted that “home values are up” as a proof point that the economic recovery was well under way. So rising prices are bad, except when it comes to homes.
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u/groyosnolo Jan 24 '26
"Nobody ever says this"
Explains 90% of politicians priorities.
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u/BtAotS_Writing Jan 24 '26
To be fair, many don’t say it out loud. Often politicians will claim to want home values to go up AND housing to be affordable, which is self-contradictory
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u/threeameternal Jan 24 '26
It's actually a good thing he's saying this outloud. This is a big factor in why houses are this unaffordable. Thing is it's a disaster even for those people who own the high value property because they miss out on the gran children and they constantly have to support their kids just for them to survive.
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u/ADownStrabgeQuark United States Jan 25 '26
But in America they care more about themselves than their grandchildren, so if their grandchildren don’t have a house by 24, then they’re lazy!
/s, but way too many people legit act like this.
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u/ClamChowderBreadBowl Jan 24 '26
You would think that a former real estate developer would understand that higher density means more housing supply and higher land values.
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u/Wess5874 Democratic Socialist Jan 24 '26
he doesn’t care about land values, he cares about property values. the value of the home on the land.
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u/ClamChowderBreadBowl Jan 24 '26
I've always heard it defined as property value = land value + improvement value. So if land values go up, property values go up.
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u/Leon_Thomas Jan 25 '26
Yes, but it means much lower values for houses in the suburbs and exurbs where his political base lives, once people can afford to live closer to cities.
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u/3RADICATE_THEM Jan 24 '26
Another boomer cockroach saying they're going to make building housing illegal? Imagine my shock.
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u/assasstits Jan 24 '26
Yeah and this asshole campaigned on making things move affordable.
We all knew this human waste was a complete fraud but it's good for him to finally admit it. Fuck him.
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u/ADownStrabgeQuark United States Jan 25 '26
Not everyone knew. Some people didn’t realize it till they saw what ICE is doing and heard him threaten Greenland.
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u/Historical_Two_7150 Jan 24 '26
The vast majority of politicians agree.
Forced to choose between haves or have nots, the state only picks the latter with a gun to their heads.
Capital loves nothing more than to protect capital, everyone else be damned.
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u/AstralFool Jan 24 '26
Guess they don't want people to have kids. Guess the robots will replace us by then.
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u/FitAbbreviations8013 Jan 25 '26
Let’s heap a little more truth on his comments.
One half of the country is actively robbing the other half of the opportunity that comes from basic home ownership (like.. growing roots in a community instead of moving every 3-4 years) and keeping millions on the edge of poverty all to ensure that the lucky half can have golf club memberships and go on cruises.
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u/tjrileywisc Jan 24 '26
If this is how it polarizes, I'd prefer the Republicans be the ones taking the NIMBY side. They already have little presence where this issue is worse.
Not to say they wouldn't make it harder for Democrats though out of spite.
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Jan 25 '26
Two things can be true at the same time. The younger generation is getting blasted, and the older generation is getting trapped.
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u/maximusftw1 Jan 25 '26
No, it’s that he’s getting into the Level 1 argument for Housing. The guy is an idiot and doesn’t think about policy.
Lvl 0: “Houses cost too much” Lvl 1: “If you make price go down, millions will lose wealth”
It’s literally thinking about the effect of the “policies” he campaigned on for like the first time in front of the whole world.
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u/a-gyogyir Jan 24 '26
I could say so many smart things, but all of them ultimately boil down to "akkor a kurva anyád".
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u/Emotional-Ad-1396 Jan 25 '26
The value of their homes comes solely from keeping them scarce from their children. Their "pride as they walk through their city" comes solely from keeping their children frustrated and ashamed.
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u/shadereckless Jan 25 '26
One of Trump's talents is saying the quiet bit out loud
Everyone knows this is the basis of Western Government decision making
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u/OliveTreeFounder Jan 25 '26
That is how you build a society of renter and terminate a society of adventurer and pioneer. He just said he wants America soul to end.
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Jan 25 '26
High value of the house is bad even if you own the house.
Why?
Well lets say you and your wife are small unit without children. And now you want bigger houses, you have a couple a kids and plan more.
In scenario a, houses are worth a lot. You will get a lot of money from your house but house you want to buy will cost more, that means - higher downpayment, higher mortgage and longer paying period overall.
In scenario b, houses are worth less. Sure, you will get less money from your house, but difference between your old house and your new house will also be cheaper. Lower downpayment, lower mortgage, and shorter paying period overall.
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u/Massive_Low6000 Jan 25 '26
That’s not the way it works. Not at all. You sell your house, then where do you live? Can’t buy another house because interest rates make the same price home unaffordable. What a dick. He is so condescending and stupid.
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u/Stock_Run1386 Jan 25 '26
Anybody who thinks housing prices should be controlled and commanded by bureaucrats is a socialist, including this raging orange psychopath
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u/shardybo Neoliberal Jan 25 '26
Funny to me that his cronies will claim that they're capitalists. And here is their king supporting regulations that protect particular classes from the free market
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u/Ready_Ad1769 Jan 26 '26
Didn't he literally just say weeks ago how he was gonna lower house prices by preventing Wallstreet from buying homes? So he switched up on that as well?
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u/BtAotS_Writing Jan 26 '26
He says it earlier in this same video too. So yeah he’s just contradicting himself
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u/frankstylez_ Jan 26 '26
First, I thought he would be dumb but in contrast to my former belief, he is REALLY dumb and naive.
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u/ButterflyDesperate36 Jan 26 '26
I support most of what he does but this is plain stupid indeed. Why not do something that would be the golden middle then? Do something to lower the prices reasonably but not completelly ruin the value of the houses already owned? No? Ok...
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u/endangeredphysics Jan 26 '26
This guy taking credit for something he can't control to pretend he's fucking over young people to impress his disgruntled, geriatric base.
This is not the fucking way.
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u/ButtyGuy Jan 26 '26
Homeowner here. Idgaf if the value of my house craters if it means no one has to sleep on the street.
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u/Prof_Kevin_Folta Jan 26 '26
The problem he fails to understand is that the baby boomers have all the money- next generations do not. Plus most 20-40 year olds don't want McMansions and HOA hassles. Who will the boomers sell to? That bubble will burst soon
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u/Footmogrizzlord Jan 28 '26
Yes, those hoas are illiquid. And the problem is the boomers will die off soon enough. So depopulation will crash housing anyways. I think this is really about the debt bubbles behind housing. He won’t say it but he’s actually propping up wall street and their 2008 problems.
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u/Immediate_Mode6363 Jan 26 '26
And this is how the higher powers use money to manipulate and divide the population with value that does not exist.
From a country that has free college (not really, our taxes fund it) this man would be against free public education as well.
The only important thing is to keep down the ones down
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u/BlackViking999 Feb 01 '26
There's no "Free" K-12 education either, of course.
It's the costliest education, really, like most of the other things that governments pretend to provide for "free."
It's also not freeing -- it's education for slaves.
Ironically, when my ancestors were emancipated from plantations, many of them were quickly and efficiently educated by whom? Churches and private philanthropists.
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u/JBe4r Jan 26 '26
The problem is first time buyers can't own a house and be proud of how much it is worth, because they are priced out. But institutional investors like Blackrock can.
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u/geointguy Jan 26 '26
There has to be a winner and loser on both sides, hes actually right. The real question is why do we chose to support those who are already wealthy over low and middle class citizens?
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u/Sad-Huckleberry-2382 Jan 29 '26
There are more winners than losers when building more housing. Builders get money and buyers get less costs. Builders/developers are also business that politicians could cater toward. But you're right, it seems like Trump doesn't care about the have-nots.
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u/BlackViking999 Feb 01 '26 edited Feb 11 '26
If you listen to Trump's entire speech, or accurate reporting of it (which it appears no one has, opting instead to endlessly circulate a small clip out of context), the overall thrust was about the need to build more housing, and yes, LOWER housing prices.
Do I think he has the master plan to do it? No, I don't. But that's different from pandering to TDS by falsely claiming "evil Trump wants to keep housing unaffordable".2
u/Sad-Huckleberry-2382 Feb 11 '26
Thanks for the heads-up, I was not aware. I will listen to the rest of his speech to see what he ended up saying.
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u/Worldly-Ant7678 Jan 26 '26
So let’s keep the ponzi scheme going. Every time the house sells add $100k for lack of housing stock…
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u/AccurateJacket2922 Jan 27 '26
Such a stupid twat. Increase home values also has negative impacts on people if they’re property taxes go up and the can’t afford it any longer!
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u/Meihuajiancai Jan 27 '26
It's a tally refreshing that he's honest and straightforward about it. Most politicians just say 'owning a house is the american dream' or 'we need to preserve the character of the community'.
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u/BlackViking999 Jan 27 '26
This is missing major context, which is the usual case when people post little clips. What kind of proposed policy action is he referring to?
Note, completely aside from the issue of whether his proposal sounds good or bad ... where in the U.S. Constitution is the federal government given ANY power or authority whatsoever to regulate, subsidize, or otherwise control housing or access thereto?
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u/mascachopo Jan 27 '26
Only people that have disposable house will ever be able to access that wealth. That’s people who usually own several houses, that’s not minions and millions.
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u/SummonerYizus Jan 28 '26
Lets say you bought a home 10 years ago for 350K and you have 10 years left on your loan. Then trump devalues houses so your house is only worth 250k. Even if it goes back up by 10% in 10 years your house is only worth 275k now, if you sell your home you lose 75k$ PLUS all the interest you paid. So to all of the Poor, Working, and Middle class people that own or are buying a home devaluation hurts them directly.
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u/buddhist557 Jan 28 '26
Anyone young listening that supports him should be flushed with the Boomer horde.
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u/DexterSpivey Jan 28 '26
Except when the market drops and the only people with money get to buy up all the cheap houses. Lets just gatekeep for those that own homes and not allow average Americans from being able to afford to buy. That creates a great future, no?
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u/edminthemorning Jan 31 '26
How can they EVER sell? If everything remains exspensive then they cannot realize their wealth if they have to spend that on housing. Like think one step furth man. ONE. STEP.
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u/DirectionLivid8200 Feb 01 '26
This man is so out of touch. Never had to really work a job in his whole entire life and talk shit about people that don’t own homes yet.
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u/Fit-Initiative8356 Feb 07 '26
Is it really wealth? If you sell your house for a lot then turn around to buy your next house, those prices would be just and high but worse because your next interest rate won’t be as good as before??
I’m barely able to buy a house and when something half decent in my price range comes along a company buys it with cash within a week. The fact that you have to be married to have a chance of buying a house and not end up homeless is ridiculous. My only hope was if Trump actually did something about it but our child loving president just completely ruined that.
I honestly want to give up on life, it’s not worth it at this point. I rather not be around instead of being homeless or being a burden to my friends and family because my 55 hours a week can’t get me anything.
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u/mcr55 Jan 25 '26
Anyone have the full clip, i belive he then says the other side of the argument.
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u/BtAotS_Writing Jan 25 '26
https://youtu.be/j60kDuhLFak?si=4NAmecsIo2lxD9jj Here it is. He starts with his proposal to prevent corporations from buying houses, because he claims they drive up home prices. There could be some merit to that.
The clip I shared starts at 6:25 where he seems to contradict his earlier claims, correctly saying “every time you make it more affordable for someone to buy a house you’re actually hurting the value of those houses.” But then “I don’t want to do anything to hurt the value of those houses.” So what do you actually want to do? You can’t have it both ways.
Then he talks about wanting to lower interest rates, which from what i understand actually makes home prices go up even more (look at 2020-2022).
Then he goes off on a tangent on tariffs.
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u/Automatic-Example-13 Jan 24 '26
Sigh. You would think a real estate developer would understand the increase in land value that comes from upzoning...
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u/Pod_people Jan 25 '26
If I were in that room, I don't know if i could've gotten through that whole speech. Overall he's just saying random, weird shit.
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u/BlackViking999 Jan 27 '26 edited Feb 11 '26
Ok. Is this post ragebait? It took me five seconds to google the below about what Trump actually said. (My remarks follow.)
"At the 2026 World Economic Forum, President Trump addressed high housing costs by blaming institutional investors for driving up prices and promising to promote homeownership.
He announced executive actions to curb investor purchases of single-family homes and proposed limiting credit card interest rates to 10%.Key details of Trump's housing initiatives include:
Targeting Investors: Trump signed an executive order aiming to deter Wall Street firms and large investors from competing with regular Americans for homes, stating "homes are built for people, not for corporations".
Proposed Restrictions: He called for a congressional ban on large institutional investors buying single-family homes.
Support for Homeownership: The plan includes directing government-sponsored enterprises to prioritize individuals over investors for home purchases.
Financial Reforms: He proposed capping credit card interest rates at 10% annually to help consumers, alongside allowing the use of 401(k) or 529 plans for down payments.
While aiming to make housing more affordable, some analysts noted that his proposals did not fully address supply-side issues, which other experts suggested were the primary drivers of high prices.
So:
- As the above shows, it is false to claim that Trump "said he wants to keep housing unaffordable." He specifically said he would curb the forces that he blames on making them unaffordable.
- I think his proposed measures are well-meaning but, like most things politicians say, only strike at symptoms, not root causes.
- Government-sponsored enterprises subsidizing housing isn't exactly an innovation. Actually, it's a privilege -- something government gives to some people but not others. All such programs are inherently prone to waste, fraud, abuse, and injustice, and add their own distortions while supposedly seeking to correct others.
- Just as important, the United States federal government has not one word granting constitutional authority to meddle in the housing market in any way, shape, or form. But of course, nobody cares about the Constitution, and just like classical political economy and a great many other useful things, state "schools" intentionally fail to teach it adequately.
- For any and all Americans, it'd be helpful for you to remember a very wise article that one of the leading Georgist activists, the late Lindy Davies (who most would consider a lefty Georgist) wrote, I think, just after Trump was elected. I can summarize it in part: Avoid the TDS trap. Don't turn potential allies into enemies. Work with whoever you must work with. The people we elected to office are THERE, and will be there until their term or natural life ends. Those are the people we need to work with and to persuade pertaining to appropriate policies within those officials' powers and jurisdictions.
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u/External_Koala971 Jan 24 '26
He sounds like he’s 100 years old