Trump Wins Second Term as President

The White House will once again have a developer-in-chief, with Donald Trump defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in their race to become the 47th president of the U.S.

Trump, who scored sweeping victories in swing states, has called for deeper cuts to the corporate tax rate and pledged to extend the 2017 tax law, including Opportunity Zones. The Associated Press called the race early Wednesday morning.

Housing policy became a major talking point during the campaign, with both candidates saying they wanted to make it easier for developers to build, but also diverging starkly on other strategies.

Trump has criticized the regulatory hoops developers must jump through to build housing, criticizing environmental review and telling Bloomberg that zoning is “a killer” when it comes to construction.

However, he previously railed against what he called President Joe Biden’s “war on the suburbs,” referring to efforts to get localities to allow more apartments. Zoning that bars multifamily housing is a major impediment to ramping up housing construction, and a Trump presidency likely means less pressure on localities from federal agencies.

Trump has emphasized the need to bring inflation and mortgage rates down, although both are largely out of the president’s control. He also said his planned “mass deportations” of undocumented immigrants would reduce demand for housing, although economists have said it would have limited impact on prices and would deplete the construction industry’s labor pool, raising costs and curbing production.

Both Trump and Harris brought in donations from prominent real estate players across the country, with Trump having an edge in Florida and Harris in California, based on a TRD analysis. Howard Lutnick, Newmark chair and a leader of Trump’s transition team, gave at least $6 million to a pro-Trump super PAC, Make America Great Again.

In the lead-up to the election, some who had vowed not to support Trump reversed course. Blackstone Group’s Stephen Schwarzman, who condemned the Jan. 6 insurrection and the attempts to delegitimize the results of the 2020 election, said in November 2022 that he would not support Trump in 2024. But when it became clearer that Trump would be the Republican nominee, Schwarzman changed his mind, citing concerns about Biden’s economic and foreign policy.

Much of the new president’s policy ambitions, however, are at the mercy of Congress — control of which was also at stake in Tuesday’s election. Republicans recaptured control of the Senate, but the House remained up for grabs early Wednesday morning.

Many provisions of the 2017 tax law expire at the end of 2025. On the table will be a number of policies important to the real estate industry, including the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions, special treatment for pass-through entities, 1031 exchanges and Opportunity Zones.

During her campaign, Harris, to the chagrin of landlords, backed President Joe Biden’s proposal to temporarily cap rent increases for landlords who own 50 or more units. She pitched a program that would provide up to $25,000 in down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers who have been current on rent for two years.

She also called for expansion of a Biden administration program that provides grants to localities that work to remove regulations that block new housing. The $40 billion “Local Innovation Fund for Housing Expansion” would have been available to state and local governments, as well as private developers, to “invest in innovative strategies to expand the housing supply.”

Harris supported legislation aimed at preventing landlords from using algorithms and price-fixing software to set rents. Companies that provide real estate companies with management software, such as RealPage, have been under fire by the Department of Justice and critics who say the technology effectively creates a cartel of owners. A Trump-appointed attorney general could call off the department’s lawsuit against RealPage.

In May, Trump became the first former president to be convicted on felony charges. He was slated to be sentenced on 34 counts of falsifying business records later this month.