Harris and Trump Agree On Lowering Housing Costs — But Their Plans Take Radically Different Paths

The presidential election has taken center stage as the Democratic Party nominated Kamala Harris at its convention this week, weeks after the Republican Party nominated former President Donald Trump.

As the candidates unveil their positions on the top issues facing voters, housing has emerged as a higher-priority topic than in past elections, and industry leaders are taking a close look at how the candidates plan to address the country’s housing affordability crisis.

Both candidates have called for increasing the supply of housing to bring down costs, and while they have vastly different proposals for how they would do so, several housing industry leaders told Bisnow this has them feeling optimistic.

"This is the first time in those years where I could ever remember housing being part of the national dialogue," National Association of Home Builders CEO Jim Tobin told Bisnow. "It's very gratifying."

High interest rates, construction costs and local barriers have slowed housing development over the last two years after a pandemic-era surge.

The U.S. this year has a housing shortage of between 1.5 million and 2 million units, according to separate estimates from Moody’s Analytics and Freddie Mac.

The cost of housing has become a top issue for voters. A Gallup poll in May found that the cost of owning and renting a home was the No. 2 most important financial problem facing U.S. families, and a Redfin-commissioned survey in March found more than half of Americans say housing affordability is impacting who they plan to vote for in this year’s election.

Vice President Harris has generated buzz on the issue over the last week after releasing her economic agenda along with the Democrats’ 2024 party platform, highlighting her push to develop 3 million new units of housing in her first term.

The push has gained praise from builders and housing advocates, with some declaring that Harris and running mate Tim Walz are part of the YIMBY — Yes In My Backyard — movement.

The platform notably didn’t mention rent control, a policy that President Joe Biden had proposed in June and Harris voiced support for when she was his running mate. Housing leaders say they don’t support any form of rent control and think it would be counterproductive to adding more housing.

While Trump has discussed housing on the campaign trail, industry leaders say his policy proposals on the issue are less clear: The GOP's 2024 party platform only mentions the word "housing" five times, with one paragraph dedicated to housing affordability. Many industry professionals are looking at his past actions and comments as president, citing his calls for reducing regulations on builders, protecting single-family zoning and opening up federal lands for development as potential focal points.

"As you think about housing policy in a potential Trump administration, it is not very well articulated," Walker & Dunlop CEO Willy Walker said.

Harris: Build 3 Million Homes, Boost Supply

Harris released a series of housing proposals Friday as part of her first economic policy rollout since taking over atop the Democratic ticket. 

The proposals touch on several facets of the housing crisis, including development, affordability and local government impacts. One of the biggest proposals from the Harris-Walz campaign is to build 3 million rental and homeownership units in their first presidential term, arguing that a boost in supply would help bring long-term affordability.

“There’s a serious housing shortage. In many places, it’s too difficult to build, and it’s driving prices up,” Harris said during a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday where she unveiled the proposal.

“As president, I will work in partnership with industry to build the housing we need, both to rent and to buy," she added. "We will take down barriers and cut red tape, including at the state and local levels. And by the end of my first term, we will end America’s housing shortage by building 3 million new homes and rentals that are affordable for the middle class.”

To help developers bring on this housing, she has proposed a tax incentive for building homes for first-time buyers.

Harris has also proposed expanding the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program to include more credits and lowering the threshold for projects. Her plan also includes a $40B fund to help local governments find solutions to their housing crises.

"We also support a workforce housing tax credit," said Cindy Chetti, senior vice president of government affairs at the National Multifamily Housing Council. "The assistance that the low on housing, low-income housing tax credit provides, but it's really difficult to build that middle-income housing."

Harris also plans to push up to $25,000 in down-payment assistance for residents who have paid their rent on time for two years to support first-generation homeowners.

The movement has also gained traction from pro-housing groups, including one called YIMBYs for Harris, which was launched earlier this month on social media platform X.

Former President Barack Obama backed the plan during his DNC speech Tuesday night.

"We can't just rely on the ideas of the past. We need to chart a new way forward to meet the challenges of today, and Kamala understands this," Obama said. "She knows, for example, that if we want to make it easier for young people to buy a home, we need to build more units and clear away some of the outdated laws and regulations that made it harder to build homes for working people in this country."

Harris also plans to target corporate investors and landlords who are accountable for the country's affordability crisis.

She announced Friday that she plans to call on Congress to pass the Preventing Algorithmic Facilitation of Rental Housing Cartels Act, which would prevent landlords from using price-fixing algorithms to increase rent, and the Stop Predatory Investing Act, which would limit tax breaks for private equity and large investment firms buying single-family rental homes in bulk, Quartz reported.

While she had voiced support for Biden’s proposed 5% rent control cap, Harris hasn’t formally proposed any rent control measures since she became the nominee, something industry leaders are relieved to see.

"The fear was that Vice President Harris, when she became the presumptive nominee, would follow along the populist policies of President Biden to propose some form or concept of rent control," Walker said. "Fortunately, what we have seen is the complete opposite … Vice President Harris called for more supply of housing, and more specifically, affordable housing, which is the one and only way that we are going to get the cost of housing to come down."

Walker went on to say that it's clear that a federal rent control effort wouldn't go forward in a Trump administration.

NMHC's Chetti said the industry association doesn’t support rent control.

"In many instances, all you have to do is look at places where they've implemented rent control, and you can see that people have stopped building in those areas," she said.

Some housing leaders voiced opposition to Harris' proposals. 

Edward Pinto, co-director of the AEI Housing Center at the American Enterprise Institute,  said providing down-payment assistance to first time homebuyers would artificially increase the demand for housing. And he isn’t confident Harris could achieve her goal of adding 3 million units, meaning the housing shortage could worsen and costs could rise.

"The Harris housing plan, in my opinion, would be worse than doing nothing because of the distortions and problems that it would create," Pinto said.

Trump: Unlocking Federal Land, Loosening Regulations

While Trump hasn’t released as many proposals on housing this election cycle, he has made some remarks about housing affordability and loosening federal regulations to reduce housing costs. And industry leaders are looking to proposals made during his presidency and past campaigns for hints on what direction he might take.

"We're going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction," Trump said at an Aug. 15 press conference. "We desperately need housing for people who can't afford what's going on now, and we are going to open it up, and we take off some of the restrictions and regulations."

The Republican economic platform has one blurb about housing. 

"To help new home buyers, Republicans will reduce mortgage rates by slashing Inflation, open limited portions of Federal Lands to allow for new home construction, promote homeownership through Tax Incentives and support for first-time buyers, and cut unnecessary Regulations that raise housing costs."

In the past, Trump has called for protecting single-family neighborhoods in the suburbs.

When running for reelection in 2020, Trump wrote a joint op-ed in the Wall Street Journal with then-U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson rejecting local efforts to eliminate single-family-only zoning.

"We reject the ultraliberal view that the federal bureaucracy should dictate where and how people live," they wrote. "We believe the suburbs offer a wonderful life for Americans of all races and backgrounds when they are allowed to grow organically, from the bottom up. That’s how America’s suburbs are today—except those that have already been ruined by poor planning and policies."

Neil Bortz, a Cincinnati-based apartment developer whose firm owns and manages over 15,000 apartments — and who contributed $50K to Trump’s election effort — told Bisnow earlier this month he doesn’t support the idea of maintaining single-family-only zoning across the country.

“I would be opposed to that,” Bortz said. “I wouldn’t necessarily be out there trying to protect single-family neighborhoods. I’d let the economic currents take it wherever it’s going to go.”

AEI's Pinto said that a gradual introduction to density, which he calls light touch density, would be a better fit for suburban towns looking to bring more housing and affordability rather than the higher density proposed by Democrats.

“I think he's on to a point there that the American people want affordable housing, meaning subsidized housing in their neighborhood, which is what Harris is proposing,” Pinto said. “They do not want that.”

Trump has also connected the issue of housing to immigration, stating that he plans to reduce both legal and illegal immigration in the country, which would open up the existing housing supply for U.S. citizens, NBC News reported.

"Republicans will secure the Border, deport Illegal Aliens, and reverse the Democrats' Open Borders Policies that have driven up the cost of Housing, Education, and Healthcare for American families," the GOP's platform stated.

The GOP platform also touches on using federal land for housing development.

"Releasing federal land is a great idea because we need more affordable land to build," NAHB's Tobin said.

However, Tobin said that most of this land is located in the western part of the country in states like Nevada, Utah and Colorado.

Trump has sought to distance himself from Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation-authored, 900-page conservative playbook that includes several housing-related proposals. It calls for maintaining single-family zoning, slashing the amount of housing vouchers residents can obtain and making cuts to the HUD program.

As president, Trump made an impact on the housing industry with the creation of opportunity zones — a tool to attract investors to distressed areas of the country to spur economic growth and job creation — as part of his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Trump also terminated the Obama-Biden Administration's Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regulation, which helped local governments reduce housing discrimination and segregation. The ruling was reinstated under the Biden Administration in 2023.

While Trump has a record from his four years in office and has made statements on the issue, Tobin said he would like to see more specific proposals from the Republican's campaign on how it would address the housing crisis.

"Without having any specifics to point to, I'm anxious to see if they're going to roll anything out, because it's been pretty high-level stuff," Tobin said.