On the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump blamed the housing crisis on immigration. As he tells it, millions of immigrants are pouring over the border and taking up scarce housing in a market that is already tight on supply and increasingly unaffordable for the middle class.
But housing market experts say the relationship between rising immigration and surging housing costs isn’t so clear. On one hand, immigrants, of course, need their own housing, and higher demand can make rents and home prices more expensive. On the other, immigrants disproportionately help contribute to new home supply because so much of the construction industry runs on their labor.
A longtime shortage
Some homebuilders are taking a more sanguine approach to potential policy changes for now.
“For me, the idea to shut that vein off of potential labor doesn’t make a lot of sense,” said Mike Forsum, chief operating officer and president at Landsea Homes, a residential builder based in Dallas. He said he’s not worried about how policy changes would affect his company’s ability to build going forward.
Landsea has been expanding rapidly amid the housing supply crunch and delivered 40% more homes in the third quarter compared to a year earlier.
“I don’t see it materially affecting us in terms of our ability to move more houses,” he said.