No, Zillow CEO didn't say Trump's deportation plan would help housing costs | Fact check
The claim: Zillow CEO said on CNBC that Trump's mass deportation plan will help with housing affordability
A Nov. 7 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shared by Ryan Fournier, the founder of Students for Trump, claims a prominent CEO offered his thoughts on President-elect Donald Trump's immigration plans.
"BREAKING: Zillow CEO just said on CNBC Trump’s deportation plan will help with housing affordability," reads text within the post, which was originally shared on X, formerly Twitter.
The Instagram post garnered more than 80,000 likes in nine days. Fournier shared a similar version of the claim on Facebook.
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Our rating: False
The CEO didn't say anything about mass deportation helping with housing costs. He said the availability and affordability of homes need to change to improve the housing market.
Post misrepresents Zillow CEO's comments
Zillow is a popular online real-estate marketplace. The company's CEO, Jeremy Wacksman, discussed challenges in the housing market in a Nov. 7 interview with CNBC.
During the interview, CNBC anchor Sara Eisen spoke about Trump's promise to kickstart the "largest deportation program in American history." She mentioned Trump's claim that the deportation effort would help solve the issue of housing affordability in the country and asked Wacksman if he agreed.
The CEO replied by saying, "The big challenges in the real estate market are affordability and availability."
He did not comment on Trump's claim and instead went on to explain that more houses need to be built to satisfy the country's supply and demand issue.
Eisen then interrupted him to ask again, "But have immigrants been a big source of demand for that and the lack of availability?"
Wacksman again side-stepped the topic of immigrants and said, "We've seen demand across all segments. ... Again, the challenge for buyers is affordability and what they can buy. And so the structural challenges and changes we need to make as a country are really around affordability and availability of supply."
He did not say whether the mass deportation of migrants would help or hurt the housing market.
Fact check: NATO secretary general congratulated Trump, didn't threaten to expel US
But experts previously told Paste BN that any mass deportation effort could actually hurt the housing market because immigrants make up such a large portion of the construction labor force. A National Association of Home Builders report found that immigrants make up 25% of the overall construction workforce. The association's chief advocacy officer Ken Wingert said it has no way of knowing how many of these workers are in the country legally.
A Labor Department analysis showed that as of 2020, foreign-born workers were also paid less than native-born workers, which kept housing costs down.
Matt Brannon, a data writer at the real estate data company Clever, told CNBC in March that zoning restrictions, prohibitive land costs and lengthy build time are largely to blame for the low supply of houses.
Paste BN reached out to Fournier for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
PolitiFact also debunked the claim.
Our fact-check sources
- Paste BN, Nov. 15, The US is short millions of housing units. Mass deportations could make it worse.
- CNBC, Nov. 7, Zillow Group CEO on earnings: We're outgrowing the category despite the challenging housing market
- CNBC, March 19, Home prices rose 2.4 times faster than inflation since 1960s, study finds. What that means for homebuyers
- Home Builders Institute, 2024, THE HOME BUILDERS INSTITUTE (HBI) CONSTRUCTION LABOR MARKET REPORT
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