From FactCheck.org:
Vance’s Misleading Claims on Housing Prices and Illegal Immigration
Vice President JD Vance has exaggerated the increase in home prices during President Joe Biden’s time in office and has misleadingly pointed to illegal immigration as a primary cause of a rise in prices.
In a Fox News interview on Nov. 13, Vance said that “the price of a new home literally doubled” under Biden. But home sales price measures show at most a 37% increase. Vance appears to be referring to an increase in the monthly cost of new homes, an increase that factors in a rise in mortgage rates.
In that interview and in a Dec. 2 Cabinet meeting, Vance pointed to illegal immigration as a primary cause. “Why did homes get so unaffordable?” he said in the Cabinet meeting. “Because we had 20 million illegal aliens in this country taking homes that ought by right to go to American citizens,” he said, using an exaggerated figure.
…
According to federal data, home prices increased during the Biden administration, but not nearly as much as Vance claimed. The Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development data show there was a 21.1% increase in the median sales price of new homes, rising from $354,800 in January 2021 to $429,600 in January 2025.
The National Association of Realtors’ seasonally adjusted annual sales figures show a similar trend for existing single-family homes. In 2024, the national median price was $412,500, a 37.4% increase from 2020, the year before Biden took office.
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“There are a couple of things going on,” Vigdor said. “Demographically, birth rates are falling and the population is aging, which will naturally reduce the number of young families looking to purchase a home. That softens the demand side.” He added that “buyers may also be waiting for interest rates to come down, or for macroeconomic uncertainty associated with tariffs and other Trump administration initiatives to resolve.”
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“I reported that every immigrant entering a local housing market, which I defined as a county, raises home values by about 11.6 cents,” Vigdor, who released a study in 2013 examining the link between immigration and housing prices, explained in an email. Using the Pew Research Center estimate for the unauthorized population, Vigdor estimated “32,000 unauthorized immigrants in the ‘typical’ American housing market, which suggests a boost to home values of under $4,000, or less than 1% of the current median sales price in the US.”
Steven A. Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that supports lower levels of immigration, said in September 2024 testimony to Congress that immigration was driving an increase in demand for rental housing. His analysis, he said, “indicates that a 5-percentage point increase in the recent immigrant share of a metro area’s population is associated with a 12 percent increase in the average U.S.-born household’s rent, relative to their income.” He noted that this was “only a simple correlation and does not include homeowners. Much more detailed analysis would be necessary to confirm this relationship.”
Other experts acknowledge that immigration overall plays a role in the supply and demand of housing, but they also point to larger factors driving home prices in recent years.
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Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, also pushed back against Vance’s assertions. “It is misplaced to blame immigration for the runup in house prices since the pandemic,” he told us in an email, noting that “[m]ost new immigrants rent” and the construction industry is “more dependent” than any other “on immigrant workers.”
Frost’s analysis also said that immigrants are strong contributors to the housing supply side as they accounted for 34% of construction trade jobs in 2023, based on Census data.
“The recent flat house prices are unrelated to less immigration, as immigrants generally don’t own homes,” said Zandi, whose work was frequently referenced by the Biden administration. “However, affordability remains a problem given high mortgage rates and the previous runup in house prices, rising homeowner insurance rates, and property taxes.”
Frist
I disagree with Vance, immigration had nothing to do with it. But he is close on the doubling of home prices in some areas of the country. Expand the time horizon a bit.
But since we’re fact checking, if this blog ever archived the bullshit claims of the Obamy and O’Biden regimes, you’d need ten petabytes of storage.
Want cheaper housing?
Eliminate all tariffs on building supplies and lumber, copper, etc.
Nationalize home insurance, or make insurance tax deductible.
Revert legislation blocking SALT deductibility.
Federal construction loan program, both large and small scale. Make it stupid simple for individuals to qualify and utilize construction loans.
Attempt to subvert and revert building codes.
Attempt to subvert local zoning rules.
For both of the above, hire an army of lawyers and begin suing municipalities for blocking construction, enacting rent control, etc.
Nationalized subsidies on affordable housing construction.
Federal standards for manufactured housing, push for inclusion into building codes.
Sell federal land to developers for building. Eliminate local zoning governance in these projects.
Tax breaks for developers, individual tax breaks for new construction (maybe tied to the special construction loan programs above).
What about limiting how many SFH’s an individual, corporation, or venture capitalist can own?
Poor Montclair…
https://www.nj.com/education/2025/12/montclair-meltdown.html
Oh, well now that’s the nuclear option.
Grim there is a reddit thread too.
Some comments.
“Basically Montclair used one-time COVID funds to introduce new recurring-cost programs and playing games with pushing off paying their bills. Now the funny business is over”.
https://www.reddit.com/r/newjersey/comments/1phive8/montclair_meltdown_mysterious_20m_debt_threatens/
“Clifton did this with the COVID funds, too. We’re pretty fucked this year, and we’re gonna get fucked next year.
It’s a lot of fuckery.”
“Wait is this what happened to Toms River? Cause I kept hearing cuts to school budget this summer
Toms River’s issues since the late 80s can be summed up as Toms River is full of people who either willingfully moved to Toms River, or who can’t figure out how the hell to get out.”
Chgo: Point taken on Mamdani giving up his rent stabilized apartment. . It’s still ironic though that the Dem Socialist is moving into a mansion. Socialists do like their comforts.
I myself have seen my taxes rise over 10 % in the last year.
8,800 students across 16 schools down. We should be closing schools instead of raising taxes. There was a plan to do just that consolidate two half empty grammar schools. The moms cried and the board caved.
Thouse that voted for raising taxes were voted out. However taxes never go down.. 2% cap ha…you get an exemption and can raise it 10%. Annual reassessment came in just last week. What do you know I have a million dollar house now. Why do I feel so poor?
“Toms River’s issues since the late 80s can be summed up as Toms River is full of people who either
willingfullywrongfully moved to Toms River, or who can’t figure out how the hell to get out.”Fixed it. ;) Toms River is the place that culture avoids. It’s vanilla ice cream at 55 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s purgatory light. It’s five feet above sea level for 25 square miles. Everyone born and raised there should be named ‘Sandy Loam’.
3b – Mamdani does not qualify for that apartment anymore. $258,750 salary and free mansion.
BTW his $2,300 a month for a one-bedroom in Astoria? He was a NY Assembly man. New York Assembly members earned a base salary of $142,000 the best-compensated in the nation.
Speaking of Property taxes. In the race to keep the Boomer Geezers aging in place NY state has passed a new law.
Increased Property Tax Exemptions for NY Seniors
Local Senior Exemptions (Up to 65%):
What it is: A new law lets local governments (cities, towns, counties) offer seniors up to a 65% reduction in their home’s assessed value, a boost from the previous 50% limit.
How it works: It reduces the taxable part of your home’s value by a percentage, lowering your bill.
Eligibility: Must be 65+, own and live in the home, and meet local income limits (which vary).
20m is chump change to the people in Montclair.
My guess is there are hundreds of families there who have more than that in their retirement accounts.
A few of them could get together, pony up some cash, and do something good with their lives for their fellow Montclarians.
What it is: A new law lets local governments (cities, towns, counties) offer seniors up to a 65% reduction in their home’s assessed value, a boost from the previous 50% limit.
Nice! Bring it here! A compassionate program along with VSG’s contribution to my S0cial Security fund will enable me to live quite nicely! I may switch my party loyalty to the s0cialist democrat party upon retirement.
Eligibility: Must be 65+, own and live in the home, and meet local income limits.
Income limits.
Not Asset limits. So you can be a billionaire, but make sure you are careful how you trickle those assets into your daily life.
How to purchase a boomer vote. Yet repukes want young women to have children while supporting the oldest and wealthiest.
You can’t give boomer free everything when you want a large house, like to travel, get your nails done, get massages, and Uber eat your meals every day. That leaves no extra money to afford a 300k child.
“Clifton did this with the COVID funds, too. We’re pretty fucked this year, and we’re gonna get fucked next year.
I guess fucking is good when you are being fucked by someone you like, and bad when you are fucked by someone you don’t.
Juice: Could Mamdani have sublet the apartment of he wanted to?
3B – One can legally sublet a rent stabilized apartment in NYC. However, they must request the landlord’s consent and have the intent to return within two years.
So answer is legally no since they Mayor’s term is 4 years, the landlord can reject the request based on that I gather.
Phoenix,
Sorry but, looks like it’s crickets as nobody here wants to address or position themselves vis-a-vis the issue of turning SFH’s into an investment class.
Boomer: Large institutional investors should not be allowed to buy up SFH s to turn into rentals.
Why should it matter if it’s a SFH or a multi? Yes there wasn’t a large Single-Family Rental (SFR) market as a formal asset class like today… but rent to own is not something completely new, only the securitization of it.
3b – Why should only apartment buildings be subject to the magic of wall street investment magic?
You do realize you are talking about legalizing a systemic structure of classism.
Juice: I have a problem with institutional investors buying up any type of housing and dominating and manipulating the market.
3b – Actually the more I think of the more I believe we should have not repealed Glass-Steagall Act in 1999.
The massive TBTF – JPM, BAC, Citi, Wells Fargo etc…would not exist today.
Then there are the others non-banks like Blackrock with a balance sheet of $13.5 trillion……
Without these massive financial holding companies and non-banks would we still see these massive distortions in the housing markets?
3b – Actually the more I think of the more I believe we should have not repealed Glass-Steagall Act in 1999.
The massive TBTF – JPM, BAC, Citi, Wells Fargo etc…would not exist today.
Then there are the others non-banks like Blackrock with a balance sheet of $13.5 trillion……
Without these large financial holding companies and non-banks would we still see these massive distortions in the housing markets?
Was that before or after post nut clarity?
Juice Box says:
December 9, 2025 at 11:00 am
3b – Actually the more I think of the more I believe we should have not repealed Glass-Steagall Act in 1999.
This one is 100 percent Jersey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z9KzYpz5AI&t=920s
Juice: I was always against the repeal of Glass Steagallit worked well . for around 7o years. The reasons to get rid of it as Toledo by our financial experts and bought and paid for politicians is so that we could compete with the EU, since they were going to kick our ass. Deutsche Bank and UBS were going to dominate American IB”s, and we would be left behind. Well, what a joke that was. Deutsche Bank is pathetic and UBS is middling at best.
Juice: And to answer your question i don’t think we would see these massive distortions in the housing market.
To lower housing prices:
Deregulate restrictive state and local zoning and land use restrictions.
Get rid of costly local government permitting monopolies.
Welcome lower cost immigrant construction labor
Repeal tariffs on goods and materials used in homebuilding
Deregulate certifications in plumbing, electrical, etc which restrict competition.
Trump 1’s lumber and steel tariffs were very costly. Scaring off Mexican labor too.
Job openings have increased likely do to temporary hires for holiday shopping.
Let people build granny pods in their backyards space permitting. I would say a lot of towns would have an issue with that. What kind of message does that send about the town? It could negatively impact the haughtiness of the town.
Welcome lower cost immigrant construction labor.
Now that doesn’t sound very Republican does it?
3b – granny pods? More like pods for Gen Z…..and late Gen Y…
“More like pods for Gen Z…..and late Gen Y…”
Call them Tide Pods. If ya know, ya know.
Was that before or after post nut clarity?
Part of that was cut off.
Bill Clinton’s PNC that is.
Release the Epstein files already. Oh, and the 2k for all of us. Oh, and stop that war in Ukraine in the next 24 hours.
Do something you promised.
Might have a hit on the employment tip. Potential shitty commute to LIC, but excellent $$$ opportunity. We’ll see how this plays out. Was the highest end vendor to my former employer attempting to reinvent themselves. Good thing I had a non-compete. More to come, hopefully.
Lib
Hopefully it will give you a real happy new year.
Dark —-> Massive coverup on the Epstein files in progress.
Look here…—> A New York federal judge on Tuesday ordered the unsealing of grand jury materials and other documents related to the prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite convicted in 2021 of procuring underage girls to be sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein.
Judge Paul Engelmayer’s order came at the request of the Department of Justice, which cited the Epstein Files Transparency Act that Congress passed last month.
Lib: Good luck with the potential job hit. I hope it works out for you. Did you mean you don’t have a non-compete?
Ruh Roh
If you need proof that Americans are struggling financially, here it is.
Foreclosures — when a bank or lender takes back a home after missed mortgage payments — are continuing to skyrocket.
New data from ATTOM shows the number of homeowners falling behind is rising every single month.
In November, 35,651 properties had a foreclosure filing — up a staggering 21 percent from just one year earlier.
‘November marks the ninth straight month of year-over-year increases in foreclosure activity, underscoring a trend that has steadily taken shape throughout 2025,’ said Rob Barber, CEO at ATTOM.
The states hit worst in November were Delaware (one in every 1,924 housing units with a foreclosure filing), South Carolina (one in every 1,973), Nevada (one in every 2,373), New Jersey (one in every 2,511), and Florida (one in every 2,565).
Boys, shovel that coal from the tender into the firebox faster.
This engine is running out of steam!
Yes, typed the non-compete backwards. I have no non-noncompete. They weren’t popular back in 1999 when I was hired. :P
Trump to Ukraine. Your losing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPTZJXCMSi4
Lib – Did you not sign an exit agreement for severance?
Check the fine print there…
I did already. I’m clear.