President Trump has called on Big Home Builders to build more homes in a new social media post.
It’s no secret that affordable housing is terrible at the moment and one of the reasons is a shortage of available delivery for sale.
As we all know from Economics 101, or just daily life, the greater the supply of something, the lower the price.
So if the builders decided to build more homes, we could probably see that the requested prices are falling and thus improving affordable prices.
The problem is that housing builders are already sitting on a supply glut and they are pre-profit companies.
Trump accuses large home builders of sitting on empty batches
While Trumps’ Truth’s Social Posts above may be well -meaning (who do not want a cheaper house to buy), it is not necessarily possible.
In his post, he compared the big home builders to OPEC and claimed that the latter “kept oil prices high.”
He added that “it wasn’t right for them to do it,” and said it was now “was done again.”
However, this is apparently cartel committed “by the big home builders in our nation” This time, as he continues to say, is his friends.
The president pointed out that “they are sitting on 2 million empty parties,” as he claimed is a record while at the same time asking for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make them build more.
It is unclear what the plan to make them go can be, but you assume some kind of financing agreement to make home ownership more attractive if it involves GSEs.
A kind of incentive for first -time home buyers to put the American dream back within easy reach.
Although it sounds good on the surface, it is difficult to blame the home builders for the current supply on supply.
They are already sitting on too many homes in the communities where they have built, which explains why they offer record incentives to their customers.
If they have to offer large incentives, including massive mortgage loan shootings, to move stock, it makes some sense to build more.
Aggravation of this is the cost of supplies to build housing thanks to tariffs, something Trump administration implemented.
And perhaps the cost of labor, which may have been disturbed due to sweeping attacks on illegal immigrants.
Bad housing affordable
Now let’s consider new home supply that rose to 490,000 units at the end of August 2025, per year. Census Bureau.
While it was 1.4% below the estimate in July 2025 of 497,000, it was 4% above the estimate for 471,000 August 2024 of 471,000.
And the only reason why it’s not much higher is because of a surprisingly hot new sales print at home last month.
The surprise print also pushed the supply of new homes for sale down to 7.4 months, which was less than the 9.0 months in July and August 2024 -the estimate of 8.2 months.
Before this unexpected turn, however, it approached 10 months of supply, which only happened in September 2022, when the mortgage rates more than doubled.
And in 2008, when the mortgage crisis led to one of the worst homes in history.
What is more economists do not even seem to believe in Augusten’s new houses report data, which is subject to major audits.
It also seemed to conflict with the home builder’s atmosphere, which has been quite bad, and the industry’s Skrot, which has pointed to weak buyer activity.
Just consider a recent quote from Lennars Co-Ceo Stuart Miller during their third quarter of 2025 revenue release.
He said, “We think it is now a good time to moderate our volume and allow the market to catch up.”
During the quarter, the company delivered 21,584 homes and registered 23,004 new orders, but not without major concessions.
“Achieving these results required additional incentives, resulting in a reduced average sales price of $ 383,000, and our gross margin drifted down to 17.5%, while our SG&A expenses came in 8.2%, reflecting the soft market conditions.”
Then there is Dr. Horton, the country’s top residential builder, whose performing chairman David Auld said: “New demand for the home is still affected by continuous affordable restrictions and cautious consumer enthusiasts.”
“We expect our sales incitaments to remain elevated and increase further over the fourth quarter,
To what extent will depend on the strength of demand for the rest of the summer, changes in mortgage rates and other market conditions. “
Buyer’s demand is weak and new homes are not located in the right places
In other words, the nation’s two largest home builders say the same thing. Buyer’s demand is weak due to lack of affordable prices.
And the only way to move home right now is to offer huge incentives to customers.
An important strategy has recently been the purchase of mortgage loan, both builders use via their captive mortgage lenders, Lennar Mortgage and DHI MORTGAGE.
Asking them to build even more homes and take a mowing of pricing just didn’t make sense.
The places where they have land and building are not necessarily where we need more new homes.
Unfortunately, home builders often only build on the outskirts of larger meters where there is already ample supply.
Building even more homes in distant places does not solve this housing crisis.
We need more existing home supply in places where families actually want to live. But much of it is out of the market because of things like mortgage-in.
Maybe it is a better strategy to incentive existing homeowners to sell than to continue to build where people do not want to buy.
Read on: Should I buy a new home or a used home?
Before creating this site, I worked as a banking director of a wholesale loan in Los Angeles. My practical experience in the early 2000s inspired me to start writing about mortgage loans 19 years ago to help potential (and existing) home buyers better navigate the home loan process. Follow me on x for hot take.