Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Is Making New Homes More Expensive
ByPrices for construction labor and materials are soaring.
Last year, Jim Brown and other home builders around Atlanta could get a good framing crew at a rate of $3.25 per square foot. This year, the few framers they can find demand, and get, almost double that.
“They can ask anything,” Brown said. “There aren’t enough of them left.”
A high-end home builder who supported President Donald Trump last year, Brown said the president’s immigration policies have dried up the already stretched supply of Hispanic-dominated framing labor. That has driven up home prices by slowing the supply of new houses as well as raising the cost of building them. A 3,000-square-foot house that cost $9,750 to frame even late last year now costs $18,000, he said, while last year’s six-month supply of homes in the construction pipeline is down by half. And that’s even before Trump pursues promised trade rule changes that could drive up other home building costs…
Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Is Making New Homes More Expensive
