Spring is traditionally a season of new beginnings: blooming flowers, buzzing bees, and… home purchases. Warmer weather typically marks the start of peak homebuying season, when increased inventory and renewed demand help families take the next step toward achieving the American Dream.
This year, however, spring has been a different story. Despite a recent increase in homes hitting the market, high mortgage rates and inflation continue to put homeownership out of reach for many Americans. A new poll commissioned by my organization, the Bull Moose Project, found that 60 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the current state of housing affordability. They have good reasons for viewing things so dismally. Rather than rebounding this spring, the market has slowed, with existing home sales falling 3.6 percent in March alone. Sellers are now widely outnumbering buyers, and more than half of current listings are considered “stale,” remaining on the market for over 60 days.
Meanwhile, the profile of the average American homebuyer is undergoing a troubling generational shift. Seventy-eight percent of Americans still consider homeownership part of the American Dream, but more than half are pessimistic that they will ever be able to afford it. First-time homebuyers now make up just 21 percent of the market, while the median age of a first-time buyer has climbed to an all-time high of 40 years old.
These trends should concern anyone invested in the long-term health of the country. America thrives when young working families have the opportunity to put down roots, build wealth, and create stable futures through homeownership.
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At the center of today’s affordability crisis is a simple reality: the United States is millions of homes short of what the market demands. The solution is equally straightforward: build more housing.
Voters recognize this reality and are desperate for change. Seventy-seven percent of Americans support reducing regulatory costs to increase housing supply. Yet builders across the country continue to face outdated zoning codes, lengthy permitting processes, and burdensome regulations that add unnecessary costs and delays to new construction projects.
Reforms that expand housing supply are proven to work. Research shows that markets that increased housing supply by 10 percent between 2017 and 2023 saw rents fall by roughly 5 percent between 2017 and 2024. Austin, Texas, for example, implemented several policy reforms over the past decade that helped drive down rents in large apartment buildings by 7 percent from 2023 to 2024, the steepest decline among major U.S. cities. Even traditionally high-cost cities like San Francisco have demonstrated the value of reform, cutting average homebuilding approval timelines from 605 days to just 208.
Simply put, America is facing a housing supply crisis, and the only way to fix it is to address the bottlenecks preventing new construction. Until policymakers tackle those barriers directly, the housing shortage will continue to grow, and homeownership will move further out of reach for working families.
This is why solutions championed by the Trump administration, like expanding housing supply and reducing unnecessary regulatory burdens, matter so much. Voters are paying attention to who is advancing practical policies that make homeownership more attainable. In fact, 53 percent of Americans say they are more likely to support candidates who back policies that expand access to homeownership while maintaining strong mortgage standards.
The survey also revealed that 78 percent of voters support policies that help lower mortgage rates, recognizing the direct impact rates have on affordability. And lower mortgage rates can be achieved in a variety of ways – even small ones. Research shows that just a 0.25 percent increase in mortgage rates can price approximately 1.13 million homes out of reach for prospective buyers.
Sometimes, the best policy can be just doing nothing at all. For example, keeping the current tri-merge credit model, which requires lenders to pull reports from all three major credit bureaus when evaluating mortgage applications. Some have argued for alternatives, which may sound good on paper but will just result in higher rates.
The solutions are clear: increase housing supply, reduce borrowing costs, and preserve proven mortgage standards that protect consumers and lenders.
Spring homebuying season should represent opportunity and optimism for working families. Instead, for too many Americans, homeownership feels farther away than ever. If policymakers truly want to Make Homes Affordable Again, they must focus on practical reforms that expand supply, lower costs, and restore confidence in the housing market before the American Dream slips further out of reach.
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