"Trump touted his barrage of recent housing policy executive orders, including preventing institutional investors from buying single-family homes and attempting to lower mortgage rates by directing government-controlled mortgage finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities. "It's just not fair to the public [that] they're not able to buy a house," Trump said Wednesday of institutional homebuying."
""many of you are good friends of mine [and] many of you are supporters," but "you've driven up housing prices by purchasing hundreds of thousands of single family homes." "It's been a great investment for them, often as much as 10% of houses on the market," Trump said. "You know, the crazy thing is, a person can't get depreciation on a house, but when a corporation buys it, they get depreciation.""
"One policy that went unmentioned during Trump's Wednesday speech in Davos, and one experts say could carry potentially big risks and do little to address the root causes of high housing costs, is his proposal that would allow Americans tap their 401(k) savings for mortgage down payments, which now averages 19% of a home's price. The current U.S. median home price is about $428,000, according to Redfin, meaning a down payment could amount to a whopping $81,000."
Executive actions aim to restrict institutional investors from buying single-family homes and to lower mortgage rates by directing government-controlled mortgage firms to buy $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities. Proposals also include capping credit-card interest rates at 10% to help Americans save for home purchases. Concerns center on institutional buying driving up prices and tax advantages corporations gain from depreciation. A separate proposal would allow tapping 401(k) savings for down payments, which experts warn could carry big risks and not address core causes of high home prices; median U.S. home down payments average about 19%.
Read at Fortune
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