EVERYBODY WINS': More affordable housing will get 'this whole economy going again,' CEO says

Joining us now is Jim Tobin, he is the CEO of the National Association of Home Builders. I want to know how Trump will revitalize the housing market. Can you tell me? Well, I think first off, you have the president who ran on building more housing supply, right? First time we've seen that, at least in a generation, where it was the centerpiece of his economic campaign. He's talked about opening more federal lands for home building. That's going to be great in Las Vegas, California, Utah, some of the high-growth states out there. I also think in expanding economy, he's inheriting an economy that's getting better. And past his prologue, we saw his first four years in office, really saw wages rise, interest rates were low, housing really boomed. Trouble is, though, to build housing, that's regulated at the state level, not the federal level so much as the state level. Not much Trump can do about state regulations on house building. No, but he can use the federal levers to use federal grants or federal dollars to force state and local governments to pay more attention to housing supply. He can do that? He can, yeah. And there's a whole host of federal regulations that we expect him to cut, too, that will add to housing affordability. I just saw, this is what I need to address, there's a new report, and it shows that people need to earn $107,000 a year to afford a single-family home in many cities. That's twice the cost of just five years ago. How will Trump fix that? Well, again, I think a larger economy, better wages, interest rates, we expect to come down. But more importantly, if you look at the worst affordability in this country, it's all California. Guess what? The most overregulated state in the country when it comes to housing. I think you're going to see Trump push that lower when it comes to the regulatory burden. And I think that that's the way we build more houses. More supply means meeting demand, means lower prices. Everybody wins. It's not going to come quickly, though, is it? No, it's going to take some time to do it. But I also think that as interest rates continue to fall over the next couple of years, you're going to see the pace to pick up. You know, our HMI came out today up three points. Our reading after the election, our builders are that much more excited for a President Trump term. So I think it's getting better. We don't need more mansions. What we need is more affordable housing. Surely that's what it's all about. If we need to get the churn back in the marketplace, lower interest rates bring existing supply back on. But more importantly, that first-time, first-generation homebuyer, we have got to get them back into the marketplace. That's right. All right. Jim Tobin, thanks for being here. Always appreciate it. See you later.