When President Donald Trump compared “Big Homebuilders” to OPEC in a Sunday evening Truth Social post, he gave voice to a common populist trope: Greedy developers are hoarding the supply of houses and thus driving up costs. In many ways, it was classic Trump, sending a jolt through corporate America at one of the least expected times while embracing a populist policy point, and traversing across previously fiercely guarded partisan lines. It almost sounded like something from the center-left “Abundance” movement.
“They’re sitting on 2 million empty lots,” he wrote. “I’m asking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get Big Homebuilders going and, by so doing, help restore the American Dream.”
