President Trump has known as on the large dwelling builders to construct extra houses in a brand new social media submit.
It’s no secret that housing affordability is horrible in the meanwhile, and one of many causes is a scarcity of accessible for-sale provide.
As everyone knows from economics 101, or just day by day life, the larger the availability of one thing, the decrease the value.
So if the builders determined to construct extra houses, we’d arguably see asking costs fall, thereby bettering affordability.
The issue is the house builders are already sitting on a provide glut they usually’re for-profit firms.
Trump Accuses Huge House Builders of Sitting on Empty Heaps
Whereas Trumps’ Fact Social submit above is likely to be well-intentioned (who doesn’t desire a cheaper home to purchase), it’s not essentially possible.
In his submit, he in contrast the large dwelling builders to OPEC, claiming the latter “saved Oil costs excessive.”
He added that “it wasn’t proper for them to do this,” and mentioned it was now “being accomplished once more.”
Nevertheless, this obvious cartel is being dedicated “by the Huge Homebuilders of our Nation” this time round, who he goes on to say are his pals.
The President identified that “they’re sitting on 2 Million empty tons,” which he claimed is a report, whereas concurrently asking for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get them constructing extra.
It’s unclear what that plan to get them going is likely to be, however you’d assume some type of financing deal to make homeownership extra enticing if it entails the GSEs.
Some type of incentive for first-time dwelling patrons to place the American Dream again inside attain.
Whereas it sounds good on the floor, it’s onerous responsible the house builders for the present provide shortfall.
They’re already sitting on too many houses within the communities the place they’ve constructed, which explains why they’re providing report incentives to their clients.
If they’ve to supply main incentives, together with huge mortgage price buydowns, to maneuver stock, it makes little sense to construct extra.
Exacerbating that is the price of provides to construct houses because of tariffs, one thing the Trump administration carried out.
And maybe the price of labor, which has presumably been disrupted as a result of sweeping raids of unlawful immigrants.
Poor Housing Affordability Has Already Led to a Provide Glut of Newly-Constructed Houses
Now let’s think about new dwelling provide, which elevated to 490,000 items as of the top of August 2025, per the Census Bureau.
Whereas it was 1.4% under the July 2025 estimate of 497,000, it was 4% above the August 2024 estimate of 471,000.
And the one purpose it’s not a lot greater is due to a shock sizzling new dwelling gross sales print final month.
That shock print additionally pushed the availability of latest houses on the market all the way down to 7.4 months, which was under the 9.0 months in July and the August 2024 estimate of 8.2 months.
Nevertheless, previous to this sudden flip decrease it was approaching 10 months of provide, which solely occurred in September 2022 when mortgage charges greater than doubled.
And in 2008, when the mortgage disaster led to one of many worst housing downturns in historical past.
What’s extra, economists don’t even appear to consider the August new houses report knowledge, which is topic to massive revisions.
It additionally appeared to battle deeply with dwelling builder sentiment, which has been fairly poor, and business chatter that has pointed to weak purchaser exercise.
Simply think about a current quote from Lennar’s Co-CEO Stuart Miller throughout their third quarter 2025 earnings launch.
He mentioned, “We consider that now is an effective time to reasonable our quantity and permit the market to catch up.”
Throughout the quarter, the corporate delivered 21,584 houses and recorded 23,004 new orders, however not with out main concessions.
“Attaining these outcomes required further incentives, leading to a decreased common gross sales value of $383,000, and our gross margin drifted all the way down to 17.5%, whereas our SG&A bills got here in at 8.2%, reflecting the smooth market situations.”
Then there’s D.R. Horton, the nation’s high dwelling builder, whose Govt Chairman David Auld mentioned, “New dwelling demand continues to be impacted by ongoing affordability constraints and cautious client sentiment.”
“We anticipate our gross sales incentives to stay elevated and improve additional through the fourth quarter,
the extent to which can rely on the energy of demand through the the rest of summer season, adjustments in mortgage rates of interest and different market situations.”
Purchaser Demand Is Weak and New Houses Aren’t Positioned within the Proper Locations
In different phrases, the nation’s two largest dwelling builders are saying the identical factor. Purchaser demand is weak as a result of a scarcity of affordability.
And the one strategy to transfer houses proper now’s to supply enormous incentives to clients.
One main technique recently has been the mortgage price buydowns, which each builders make use of through their captive mortgage lenders, Lennar Mortgage and DHI Mortgage, respectively.
Asking them to construct much more houses and take a haircut on pricing simply didn’t make sense.
Additionally, the locations the place they’ve land and construct aren’t essentially the place we want extra new houses.
Sadly, dwelling builders typically solely construct within the outskirts of main metros, the place there’s already ample provide.
Constructing much more houses in faraway locations received’t remedy this housing disaster.
We want extra present dwelling provide in locations the place households truly need to dwell. However a lot of it’s off the market as a result of issues like mortgage price lock-in.
Maybe incentivizing present owners to promote is a greater technique than persevering with to construct the place folks don’t need to purchase.
Learn on: Ought to I purchase a brand new dwelling or a used dwelling?
Earlier than creating this website, I labored as an account govt for a wholesale mortgage lender in Los Angeles. My hands-on expertise within the early 2000s impressed me to start writing about mortgages 19 years in the past to assist potential (and present) dwelling patrons higher navigate the house mortgage course of. Observe me on X for warm takes.
