The affordability narrative continues crumbling. Just over a week ago, USA Today reported, “Home prices are falling fastest in these cities. See the list.” This week, Bloomberg reported, “Florida Home Sellers Cutting Prices Adds to Pressure on Lennar.” Also this week, Triangle Business Journal reported, “Home prices in Raleigh fall sharply as rates climb.” Remember— as home prices fall, rents follow right behind. In fact, they are already falling.
Of all the Democrats’ “affordability” complaints, the one they most love to focus on is housing. This month, 66% of single-family builders reported using ‘incentives’ —ways of reducing the cost without reducing the sticker price of new homes— and 38% had cut prices outright, with the average cut around 6%.
In Jacksonville, for example, a local tracker reported combined builder incentives commonly in the $20,000–$40,000-plus range for $500,000–$800,000 homes. Eventually, builder incentives give way to outright price drops. Pre-owned home prices are also down depending on where you live, as much as 8% in Austin and 6% in the Tampa area. (To be fair, it’s uneven; they have increased in some cities, but only barely, with few exceptional hot spots.)
Rents, which Democrats love to whine about because it most impacts younger voters, are steadily falling as ICE and CBP do their work. Don’t look for that terrific news in any corporate media stories, though. Headline from MPA Mag, just two days ago:
Granted, this welcome news comes bundled with higher mortgage interest rates. So the price drops benefit cash buyers most, since mortgage payments don’t fall as much. High rates are doing much of the de-inflationary work. That’s how it’s supposed to work. It’s just another way of saying that the Administration’s financial policies are making home prices more affordable.
High mortgage rates are undoubtedly painful. But after years of artificially low (near zero) pandemic-era rates during the Biden Administration, we have a long-overdue bill. Though President Trump often complains about interest rates and loudly demands drops, conservative fiscal policy means somebody, someday, has to bite the bullet. That’s the only responsible way to cool the overheated housing market the media loves complaining about.
The good news is that it’s working. Most prices are still rising —the unavoidable result of Biden dumping $6 trillion new dollars into the economy— but they are rising at the lowest rates since before the pandemic. Joint Economic Committee Republicans released a comparison on Thursday using consumer-price data through August 2026. Its analysis estimated that the average American household faced $2,881 less in added costs during Trump’s first 20 months than it did during Biden’s first 20 months.
But in some major categories, like rent and homes and, thanks to President Trump’s drug price policies, prescription prices are falling. Actually falling, not just slowing in their rates of growth.
If you add this news to the news that American incomes have reached historic highs, the midterm narrative is being shredded. Affordability was supposed to be the Democrats’ midterm battering ram. It’s hard to swing a battering ram at a door that keeps getting cheaper.
