“Vance is an outspoken protectionist, nationalist, and anti-corporate hawk who’s bound to shift any future Trump administration in an anti-trade, anti-immigration, and anti-market direction. That can only mean bad things for the cost and availability of housing.”
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“The federal government hasn’t regulated rents at private buildings since World War II. There’s a good reason for that. A mountain of economic evidence suggests rent control is a terribly counterproductive policy.
The research couldn’t be clearer that where rent control policies suppress rents, they also suppress the supply of rental housing (by reducing construction or encouraging conversion of rental units to for-sale units) and reduce the quality of rental housing (by limiting investment).
The people who get a rent-controlled unit pay lower prices and stay in their units longer. The people who don’t get a rent-controlled unit end up paying higher prices. Cities as a whole suffer from declining investment and economic growth.
A rent control policy adopted in St. Paul, Minnesota, saw an exodus of developers from the city. New York City’s long-standing “rent stabilization” policy is producing vacant, dilapidated buildings that no one has the money to fix or redevelop.”
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“Vance is an arch-protectionist who’s endorsed Trump’s call for 10 percent tariffs across the board. Slapping taxes on imported materials needed for housing construction would make the costs of construction higher, lower housing production, and ultimately raise costs for consumers.
The Republican Party’s 2024 platform calls for deporting immigrants as a means of making housing more affordable.
Vance has been an outspoken proponent of this idea, saying on X last month that “not having 20 million illegal aliens who need to be housed (often at public expense) will absolutely make housing more affordable for American citizens.”
There’s a certain chilling logic to this idea: Lowering housing demand through mass deportations will lower housing prices as well.
New research however suggests the negative supply effects of kicking immigrants out of their homes outweigh any price declines caused by falling demand for housing. While immigrants consume housing, they also build housing. A recent study found that increased immigration enforcement creates a shortage of construction labor that lowers housing production and increases housing costs.”