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The vice presidential debate on Tuesday night offered voters some of the most robust discussion of housing policy yet in this election cycle, as Sen. J.D. Vance and Gov. Tim Walz sparred over the causes and solutions of the housing crisis.
The debate was notable for its relative civility and substance on the issues, following last month’s fiery clash between Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. With no further presidential debates scheduled, the undercard matchup might be the final major event before November’s election—and the last chance for voters to hear the two campaigns challenge each other directly on the issues.
During the debate, Republican candidate Vance, the junior senator from Ohio, repeatedly pointed to illegal immigration as the source of soaring housing costs, at one point referring to the Ohio city at the center of his prior baseless claims about migrants eating pets.
“In Springfield, OH, and in communities all across this country, you’ve got schools that are overwhelmed, you’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you have got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes,” said Vance.
The Democrat Walz, at times stumbling over his words, laid out his defense for Harris’ housing plan, which includes tax incentives to spur more home construction and a $25,000 federal down payment credit for first-time buyers. He also repeatedly took aim at investor homebuyers, blaming them for driving up the cost of housing.
“On housing, we could talk a little bit about Wall Street speculators buying up housing and making them less affordable,” said Walz. “A house is much more than just an asset to be traded somewhere. It’s foundational to where you’re at.”
Those respective talking points dominated much of the discussion on housing during the debate. However, many economists are skeptical that reducing demand from either immigrants or investors would significantly reduce housing costs in the long run, arguing the nation instead must address its chronic shortage of housing supply.
“There is pretty strong consensus among housing economists that the primary structural problem in the U.S. housing market stems from a very long period of underbuilding homes in this country due to unnecessarily strict land use regulations,” says Realtor.com® senior economist Ralph McLaughlin. “So while a band-aid solution would be to reduce aggregate demand for homes, getting to the root of the problem involves sorting out supply-side issues instead.”
Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance and Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz
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Walz touts Harris’ housing plan and his record in Minnesota
At one point, CBS News co-moderator Margaret Brennan pressed Walz for details on Harris’ plan to spur construction of 3 million new homes and subsidize down payments, asking: “Where are you building these new homes, and won’t handing out that kind of money just drive up prices higher?”
“No, it’s not handing out,” replied Walz, before pivoting to his criticism of investor homebuyers. “The problem we’ve had is that we’ve got a lot of folks that see housing as another commodity. It can be bought up. It can be shifted. It can be moved around. Those are not folks living in those houses. Those of you listening tonight, that house is a big deal.”
The governor continued with one of the night’s odder remarks, saying: “When I think of a house, I’m thinking of Christmas services after midnight Mass, where you go with your family. We need to make it more affordable.”
Although “Wall Street investors” buying single-family homes are a popular political target on both sides of the aisle, some experts are skeptical that they play a major role in the current housing crisis.
“With their small national market share, claims that large institutions inflate house prices seem exaggerated,” wrote Capital Economics property economist Thomas Ryan in a client note in May. “In our view, lawmakers are looking for a new scapegoat to blame for unaffordable housing.”
Investor buyers did account for 14.8% of home purchases in the first quarter of 2024, the highest share in the data’s history, according to the Realtor.com economic research team. However, the vast majority of those investors were mom and pop operations with fewer than 10 properties. Small investors made up 62.6% of investor purchases for the quarter, the highest small-investor share in the data going back to 2001.
During the debate, Walz also touted his record on housing as the governor of Minnesota, where he signed a $1 billion bill representing the largest investment in housing in the state’s history. The bill included funding for emergency rental assistance, housing infrastructure investments, and down payment assistance for first-generation homebuyers.
Walz said a construction boom in Minneapolis has kept rent prices in check.
“I’ve seen it in Minnesota: 12% more houses in Minneapolis, prices went down on rent, 4%,” he said.
Those figures appear to accurately refer to a Pew Research report covering rental trends in Minneapolis from 2017 to 2022. But more recent data from the Realtor.com economic research team shows that the median asking rent in Minneapolis rose 2.3% in August from a year ago, to its highest level since March 2019.
Minnesota has also launched a program to assist first-generation homebuyers with a down payment, a more limited version of Harris’ proposal to subsidize first-time buyers more broadly. Walz argued in the debate that the program pays dividends in the long run by reducing government costs.
“We get it back from people, because here’s what we know: People with stable housing end up with stable jobs. People with stable housing have their kids able to get to school. All of those things, in the long run, end up saving our money,” he said. “But we can’t blame immigrants for the only reason—that’s not the case that’s happening in many cities.”
Vance questions Harris’ record, targets immigration
Vance, who has also called for a crackdown on institutional investor homebuyers, conceded that some of the plans mentioned by Walz were “halfway decent.” But he noted that he disagreed on many points, and questioned why the housing policies proposed by Harris hadn’t already been enacted under President Joe Biden.
“Kamala Harris is not running as a newcomer to politics; she is the sitting vice president,” said Vance. “If she wants to enact all of these policies to make housing more affordable, I invite her to use the office that the American people already gave her, not sit around and campaign and do nothing while Americans find the American dream of homeownership completely unaffordable.”
Throughout the debate, Vance also repeatedly pointed to illegal immigration as the primary driver of soaring housing costs, after crossings at the Southern border hit record levels at certain points during the Biden administration.
“We don’t want to blame immigrants for higher housing prices. But we do want to blame Kamala Harris for letting in millions of illegal aliens into this country, which does drive up costs,” said Vance. “Twenty-five million illegal aliens competing with Americans for scarce homes is one of the most significant drivers of home prices in the country. It’s why we have massive increases in home prices that have happened right alongside massive increases in illegal alien, alien populations under Kamala Harris’ leadership.”
Undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. are not qualified for conventional mortgages, though they can purchase homes with cash or use an obscure, unconventional type of mortgage. Between 5,000 and 6,000 mortgages of this kind were issued last year, accounting for about 0.2% of all new mortgages, according to estimates from the Urban Institute.
At one point, the moderator Brennan challenged Vance to provide evidence that immigrants are driving up the cost of housing in America.
Vance responded by referring to a “Federal Reserve study” that he promised to share after the debate.
Throughout the debate, Vance repeatedly pointed to illegal immigration as the primary driver of soaring housing costs.
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Vance followed up by posting a link to a transcript of “brief remarks” by Fed Governor Michelle W. Bowman, which included the sentence: “Given the current low inventory of affordable housing, the inflow of new immigrants to some geographic areas could result in upward pressure on rents, as additional housing supply may take time to materialize.”
“I actually agree with Tim Walz. We should get out of this idea of housing as a commodity,” said Vance. “But the thing that has most turned housing into a commodity is giving it away to millions upon millions of people who have no legal right to be here.”
The Republican senator also conceded that illegal immigration is “not the entire driver of higher housing prices,” at various points also laying blame on “the regulatory regime of Kamala Harris” and higher energy prices.
Brennan also pressed Vance for details on Trump’s proposal to open up more federal lands for housing construction, asking, “Where are you going to seize the federal lands? Can you clarify?”
“What Donald Trump has said is we have a lot of federal lands that aren’t being used for anything,” said Vance. “They’re not being used for national parks. They’re not being used. And they could be places where we build a lot of housing. And I do think that we should be opening up building in this country. We have a lot of land that could be used. We have a lot of Americans that need homes. We should be kicking out illegal immigrants who are competing for those homes, and we should be building more homes for the American citizens who deserve to be here.”