Trump-Harris Debate: Kamala Shares Ideas To Lower Housing Costs While Donald Avoids the Issue

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump met on Tuesday night for their first, and possibly only, debate of the 2024 presidential election.

While sparks flew on the stage in Philadelphia, the encounter failed to offer voters a substantive debate on an issue that is key for many families: the rising cost of housing and the challenges of attaining homeownership.

Harris, the Democratic nominee, repeatedly raised the housing crisis, including in the opening seconds of the debate, and sketched out her ideas to boost the construction of new homes and offer federal down payment assistance to first-time buyers. But the Republican Trump failed to respond to those points or offer his own proposals on housing, instead frequently lashing out at the personal taunts and jabs Harris lobbed throughout the debate.

Ralph McLaughlin, senior economist at Realtor.com®, laments that the debate “had the potential to show nuanced differences in their approach to addressing contemporary problems in the U.S. housing market, but fell short on any significant discussion on the matter.

“All in all, this was a disappointing presidential debate with respect to housing policy issues,” he adds. “While we applaud Vice President Harris’ attempts to bring housing into the conversation, presidential debates require two to tango, and former President Trump consistently decided to avoid discussion in the matter, instead directing his attention to more identity politics-related issues.”

For her part, Harris raised housing issues nearly immediately in her first remarks of the debate, when asked whether Americans are better off economically than they were four years ago.

“We know that we have a shortage of homes and housing, and the cost of housing is too expensive for far too many people,” Harris said as part of her response, while failing to directly answer the question on the economy.

Later in the debate, Harris responded to Trump’s extended remarks about crimes committed by immigrants by saying: “It is important that we move forward, that we turn the page on this same old tired rhetoric, and address the needs of the American people, address what we need to do about the housing shortage, which I have a plan for.”

At another point, Harris contrasted her own personal background with that of Trump, the son of a successful New York City real estate developer, to argue that she had a better understanding of the challenges that young first-time homebuyers face in the current market.

“I grew up a middle-class kid raised by a hard-working mother who worked and saved and was able to buy our first home when I was a teenager,” said Harris. “The values I bring to the importance of homeownership, knowing not everybody got handed $400 million on a silver platter and then filed bankruptcy six times, is a value that I bring to my work to say we are going to work with the private-sector and homebuilders to increase 3 million homes, increase by 3 million homes by the end of my first term.”

Harris has proposed tax credits for builders that would incentivize the construction of starter homes sold to first-time buyers. She’s also called for streamlining regulations and cutting red tape to make it easier to build homes, although details of those plans are still unclear.

Later in the debate, Harris mentioned her signature housing policy, an ambitious plan to provide federal subsidies to first-time homebuyers.

“I have a plan that is about allowing people to be able to pursue what has been fleeting in terms of the American dream by offering help with down payment of $25,000, down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers,” she said. “That’s the kind of conversation I believe, David, that people really want tonight as opposed to a conversation that is constantly about belittling and name-calling.”

Finally, Harris also touched on the rising cost of property insurance, an issue that is affecting many homeowners. Nationally, home insurance rates jumped 34% from 2018 through 2023, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Experts say that huge insurance payouts from climate-related disasters have been a key driver of rising premiums.

“The former president had said that climate change is a hoax, and what we know is that it is very real,” Harris said in a portion of the debate on climate change. “You ask anyone who lives in a state who has experienced these extreme weather occurrences, who now is either being denied home insurance or is being jacked up. You ask anybody who has been the victim of what that means in terms of losing their home, having nowhere to go.”

During the 90-minute debate, Trump did not respond to Harris’ policy points on housing a single time—and did not utter the words “rent,” “homes,” or “housing.” The Republican nominee has previously said that he would lower housing costs by halting illegal immigration, cutting regulations on homebuilders, and opening up some federal land for new construction.

McLaughlin notes that both candidates have focused on ways to increase the supply of housing, saying that Trump’s avoidance of the issue could be “a reflection of just how similar Trump’s supply-side housing policies would be.

“While their broader approaches are more similar than they are different, with each proposing much welcomed supply-side proposals, the nuanced differences were essentially ignored during the debate,” adds McLaughlin. “While details of former President Donald Trump’s policies haven’t been as specific, his campaign has focused on more second-order approaches of helping homebuyers, such as inflation reduction, lowering aggregate housing demand via immigration controls, and opening up vast swaths of federally owned land for housing development. There was zero debate of these important issues in tonight’s debate, and only a casual mention by Harris of her housing plans.”

The debate comes after Harris added a policy section to her campaign website last week, outlining her proposals on key issues, including housing.

Notably, the section on housing policy includes no mention of President Joe Biden‘s proposal to cap rent increases for certain apartment buildings at 5% annually, which Biden suggested shortly before dropping out of the race. Harris hasn’t yet firmly endorsed or disavowed the national rent control proposal, which drew polarized reactions and would require congressional approval to move forward.

Instead, the campaign website outlines in broad strokes the housing policies that Harris has already floated, without adding much in the way of new details. Those policies include a plan to build 3 million more housing units over a first term, and a vow to “cut red tape to make sure we build more housing faster.”

The website also reiterates her support for a federal law that would penalize large investment firms that buy many single-family homes to rent out, and her proposal to assist first-time homebuyers with a down payment.

“As more new homes are built and affordable housing supply increases, Vice President Harris will provide first-time homebuyers with up to $25,000 to help with their down payments, with more generous support for first-generation homeowners,” the website reads, without offering new details about who would qualify or how the assistance would be paid out.