Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has announced his list of economic advisers [1], which is laden with financial industry executives and real estate industry executives.
During his presidential campaign, Trump has said very little about housing. He has spoken out on financial reform, promising to eliminate the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act which President Obama signed into law in 2010.
The list of Trump’s economic advisers includes (among others):
- Tom Barrack, founder of private equity firm Colony Capital.
- Andy Beal, founder of Beal Bank and several other financial firms.
- Stephen Calk, founder of Federal Savings Bank and National Bancorp Holdings, which is primarily focused on increasing home ownership among veterans.
- Steven Feinberg, co-founder of private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, which focuses on investing in distressed assets.
- Howard Lorber, CEO of Vector Group, a publicly traded company involved in the real estate and consumer products industries.
- Steven Mnuchin, CEO of Dune Capital Management, a private investment firm. Mnuchin is also a former Goldman Sachs executive, and interestingly enough, contributed multiple times to Hillary Clinton when she was a senator.
- John Paulson, president of hedge fund Paulson & Co.
- Steven Roth, CEO of Vornado Realty Trust.
Now with several economic advisers with real estate backgrounds on his team, will Trump speak out more frequently on the topic of housing and on boosting the homeownership rate? And if Trump is elected, will this group work to increase the homeownership rate?
“Relative to housing, I hope this impressive group of economic advisers highlight for Mr. Trump the tight credit market and its negative impact on the ability of middle class families to buy a home in particular minority homebuyers,” said The Collingwood Group [2] Vice Chairman Brian Montgomery, former Assistant Secretary of HUD and FHA Commissioner. “I would also add to the list soaring apartment rental rates especially in urban markets making it nearly impossible for lower income families to live there, a regulatory environment that has driven the cost to originate a mortgage loan to record high levels, and finally how to begin extracting the full faith and credit of the US government from a $6 trillion housing market and bring back private capital.”
Trump’s Democratic opponent for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, rolled out a plan to increase the homeownership rate at the beginning of the year, but otherwise has said little about housing.
“Housing in general needs to be a topic both candidates give higher priority to,” Montgomery said.