Episode summary
Trump’s housing policies and home prices
HousingWire Daily
· · 22 min · Hosts: Sarah Wheeler · Guests: Logan Mohtashami
Summary
Logan Mohtashami argued that the State of the Union offered little new on housing and mostly recycled familiar themes, including Trump’s push to restrict large institutional investors. He said the politics may intensify as the election cycle nears, but the housing market itself is already in a better place than it was in 2020 through early 2022.
His core point was that the market healed mainly through higher mortgage rates and more inventory, not through policy intervention. He pointed to Case-Shiller and FHFA home price growth around 1.8% and 1.3%, lower mortgage rates than the 7% to 8% range, and an NAR inventory reading of 1.22 million that he expects to rise seasonally toward 1.52 million and more than four months’ supply. In his view, that means fewer multiple bids, more normal negotiations, and a healthier buyer-seller balance.
Mohtashami was skeptical of the political framing around investors, saying he does not trust anecdotal claims without data. He emphasized instead that purchase applications, pending sales, and new listings have all improved year over year, even after weather distortions, which he sees as evidence that 2026 is starting like a normal housing year rather than a crisis year.
Key takeaways
- Mohtashami said the State of the Union added little new on housing, beyond familiar talk about restricting large investors.
- He argued the housing market is healthier because mortgage rates, spreads, and inventory have normalized since early 2022.
- He expects seasonal inventory growth from 1.22 million to more than 1.52 million active listings, with over four months’ supply.
- He said purchase applications were up 12% year over year in one recent week and 8% in the next, signaling improving demand.
- He viewed Case-Shiller and FHFA price growth near 1.3% to 1.8% as consistent with a more normal market and better affordability progress.
Notable quotes
“there was nothing really new. I I I was wondering if they were going to talk anything about the builders, you know, maybe maybe some kind of thing to help them”
“housing's just in a better spot. So the housing market was really unhealthy in 2020, 2021, and early 2022”
“But now price growth has cooled down, right? We just got the Case Shiller home price index and FHFA, you know, uh uh year-over-year data was like 1.8 to 1.3% on both”
“so far this year, weekly pending sales have been positive year-over-year mostly. you take the snow data away”
How the episode opens
Welcome everyone. My guest today is lead analyst Logan Moto Shami to talk about housing mentions in the State of the Union address and purchase apps as we head into spring. Before we dive in, I want to thank our sponsor Trust and Will for making this episode possible.
Logan, welcome back to the podcast. It is wonderful to be here and of course we just we're waiting for like maybe something new from the state of the union and uh uh nothing uh too surprising uh a few remarks on uh housing things that we kind of already knew in place. I know the White House they keep on they keep on uh well at least PY does retweets our spread chart you know where they talk about it but you know again the spread started to get better at the end of 2023 and and uh nothing too surprising but um again this is the politics part it's midterms uh uh and we should be getting u uh maybe some more maybe some more aggressive things coming down the closer we get to the uh uh elections Okay.
So, I was surprised on a couple of things. Um, I thought we might hear some interesting, innovative new ideas, right? Maybe maybe got they got burned on the 50-year mortgage and they're like, "Listen, we're going to we're going to put it on hold for a little bit.
They did mention the um investor large investor ban that uh Trump wants uh has done through trying to do through an executive uh order. But I thought that they could have talked up the fact that the house housing is in a better place right now. They could they could have talked about mortgage rates have dropped.
They could have talked about, you know, demand is up and and home.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- home prices
- trump housing policies
- state of the union housing
- mortgage market
- housing market outlook
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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