Squeezing Builders Isn’t the Way to Lower Housing Costs

America’s large publicly traded homebuilders find themselves in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte. Trump recently took to social media to urge the “big homebuilders” to build more . Pulte was quick to join in, suggesting that their size carried with it “great responsibility .”

Read between the lines and there’s the implication that the nation’s big developers represent a cartel colluding to generate windfall profits rather than build the homes Americans need. Homebuilder earnings suggest the opposite.