US homebuilders working on plan to develop as many as 1 million ‘Trump Homes,’ Bloomberg News reports
Feb 3 (Reuters) – Homebuilders are working on a proposal to develop nearly a million “Trump Homes” that would address the U.S. affordability crisis, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.
This calls for builders to sell entry-level homes into a pathway-to-ownership program allowing private capital funding of billions of dollars, Bloomberg News reported, citing sources familiar with the proposal.
Shares of U.S. homebuilders, including Lennar, D.R. Horton, Pultegroup, Toll Brothers, Taylor Morrison Home and KB Home, were up between 5-7% during early trading hours.
Lennar declined to comment, while the other homebuilders and the White House did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
The proposal comes at a time when U.S. consumers continue to face affordability challenges in an inflationary macro environment, dampening home sales across the country.
At the 1 million homes estimate, the program would likely deliver more than $250 billion worth of housing.
However, a White House official told Bloomberg News that the administration is not actively considering the plan.
Such a program would be complicated to implement and it’s possible that it won’t gain enough support to move forward, Bloomberg News reported.
Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to restrict large institutional investors from competing with individual homebuyers in an effort to make housing more affordable.
(Reporting by Aatreyee Dasgupta in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)
