Home Affordability Determines Monetary Policy, Financial Markets, and Politics

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To investors,

The home affordability crisis is having a ripple effect across American politics, financial markets, and society at large. This issue will be one of the most important things for investors to pay attention to over the next decade.

First, home affordability is impacting central bank monetary policy. This summer Jerome Powell said “the best thing we can do for the housing market is to restore price stability.” Take a listen:

While Powell’s comments are true that inflation stabilizing would have a positive impact on housing, the current administration believes the artificially high interest rates are also contributing to an erosion of home affordability. This makes sense…if interest rates are high, mortgage rates are high. If mortgage rates are high, fewer people can afford to own a home.

This position from the Trump administration has led to a very public pressure campaign from the President, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Federal Housing Director Bill Pulte to get rates lower. Jerome Powell and the Fed will claim they don’t succumb to pressure campaigns, but the Fed started cutting rates within weeks of the public pressure ramping up over the summer. Could it be a coincidence? Sure. Do I think the lack of home affordability in America is influencing Fed monetary policy? Absolutely.

But home affordability is not only affecting monetary policy. We see in financial markets that companies in the real estate market have done very well as investors place bets on various companies’ ability to solve the housing crisis. Take Opendoor as one example. Retail investors have flocked to the stock and went activist on the old management team. The CEO stepped down shortly after the activist campaign started, the company hired the former COO of Shopify, and Opendoor is now going through a significant transition from an investment company to a software company.

These various changes have led to the company’s stock price going from around $0.50 at the low this year to the closing price of $9.37 per share yesterday. Can Opendoor increase access to home ownership? We are going to find out. But I became an investor in the company this year and am genuinely proud to have my investment dollars helping to fund a company that is focused on helping more Americans own a home. I suspect there are many others like me who want to see this problem solved.

This is an interesting dichotomy from the performance of various home builders. Lennar is down -0.2% year-to-date, D.R. Horton is up only 6%, and NVR is down nearly 9% in the same timeframe. PulteGroup is one of the rare standouts with a nearly 13% appreciation this year.

As I mentioned at the start, the housing market is having an impact everywhere. It touches on technology, tariffs, and monetary policy. It is a complex market that will create lots of mispricings over time. Investors are trying to figure out who can create value over the long run and who can’t.

But nowhere is housing having a bigger impact than in American politics.

We saw Zohran Mamdani get elected New York City mayor while openly running as a socialist who promised free buses, rent freezes, and government-run grocery stores. President Trump and his administration have floated the idea of a 50-year mortgage to help alleviate the financial pressures preventing young people from buying a home. And Federal Housing Director Bill Pulte told me last week in a public interview that US home builders need to build more homes or the US government may take a deeper look at what federal dollars are flowing to these companies.

Monetary policy. Financial markets. Politics. Everywhere you look, home affordability is driving part of the story. So how do we fix this? What is the solution?

You build more housing. Yes, it is really that simple.

It doesn’t even matter what type of housing you build. You can build affordable housing and the increased supply will drive down the cost of affordable housing. More supply means lower prices. Economics 101. But recent studies show that building luxury apartments also drive down housing costs in a city.

The UPJohn Institute writes:

“In cities with tight housing markets, policymakers have struggled to help lower-income residents afford homes. New research shows that just building new housing—even expensive housing—can quickly drive down housing costs across metro areas, including in low-income neighborhoods.

Building housing sets off a process called a migration chain, as people leave their homes to move into new units. When people vacate a given type of unit, it loosens the market for that type of unit, which lowers prices. Other people move into the newly vacant homes, leaving their previous units vacant, and the process repeats itself again and again.”

So what is my big takeaway from this? The first principles solution to numerous issues and complexities in American society is to simply build more housing. It will positively impact monetary policy, financial markets, and politics. More housing pushes us back towards the American dream. More housing increases adoption of capitalism and democracy. And more housing helps American families get closer to the financial security they are passionately chasing.

Hope you all have a great day. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.

- Anthony Pompliano

Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management

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