Housing Secretary Says a Fourth of U.S. Homes’ Cost Is ‘Pure Red Tape’

Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Sec. Scott Turner revealed just how much of the high expense for buying homes comes from government regulation.

For years, buying or even renting a home has become more and more expensive, though the prices grew particularly heinous under the Biden administration, and have not yet come down under the Trump administration. As a renter during the Biden administration in Virginia, I remember when my rent went up over $500 at one time — of course, I was also in an apartment complex where the government was housing Afghan “refugees,” so the price went up because the feds would pay whatever taxpayer money it took.

Turner is hoping to reverse the trend of skyrocketing costs that are making the American dream of home ownership increasingly distant, partly by deregulation and partly by building incentives.

The median home in America today costs over $400K. 

$100K of it is pure red tape. 

Tearing down regulations is the fastest path to American homeownership. pic.twitter.com/rXgG04o9xw
— Scott Turner (@SecretaryTurner) August 21, 2026

The HUD secretary appeared on The Clay & Buck Show on August 20 and explained, “As we've been traveling, we've been asking localities [and] mayors, ‘hey, take inventory of your regulatory environment. What's crippling people so they cannot build? Why is development not happening? Why is construction so high’? And so, as we do that, we also are tearing down green energy mandates.”

There is no world-ending climate crisis, but this has been the pretext for unnecessary and onerous environmental regulations for decades. It is why architectural marvels such as the Empire State Building and Disneyland once took only about a year to build, whereas now the paperwork for one building can take years to complete. The same goes for private homes.

Turner noted that the “medium price of a home in America today is over $400,000. $100,000 of that is in regulations alone.” That means that a fourth of the price to buy a home in America is totally due to government regulation.

Host Clay Travis exclaimed, “That's crazy.” Turner agreed, “And so when you take down the regulatory environment, you bring down the cost of build, which is passed on to the 20-, 30-, 40-year-olds, and say, ‘Hey, it's the price to build is lower, so that means the price to buy is lower, and the supply goes up,’ and that's what we've been working on with President Trump, to bring that environment down.”

Interestingly, it is now on average cheaper to buy a new home than a resale, per Fortune, possibly because Turner is trying to incentivize building, while longtime homeowners aim to sell high.

But Turner has a long road ahead of him in order to try and reverse decades of idiotic government decision-making. It would also be beneficial if the Trump administration would ban foreigners from buying up American homes and farmland, particularly the Chinese.

The American dream has always included property ownership, since centuries before the United States became an independent nation. But government regulators want to steal that dream away. Turner is defying the status quo.

Editor's Note: President Trump is fighting to renew America this 250th birthday year.

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