US Vice President JD Vance told a young conservative student worried about affording a home and starting a family that Texas house listing prices had doubled under Joe Biden. Comparable federal data show an increase of about 20%, not 100%.
The exchange took place at a Fox News town hall in Fort Worth, Texas, on 29 October 2026. A short video of Vance initially joking about a US senator’s backside has circulated widely, but the full recording also shows him acknowledging the affordability problem and giving a longer answer.
What the student asked
Kate White, a senior at Texas Christian University and vice-president of its Turning Point USA chapter, explained that young conservatives are encouraged to marry and have children while struggling with the cost of homes and raising a family. She asked how young people could follow that advice when an American home cost more than $415,000.
Vance thanked her, then returned to a joke that host Jesse Watters had raised earlier in the programme about Ohio Republican Senator Jon Husted. The remark brought laughter, but it was not his entire response.
After the joke, Vance agreed that Republicans had not paid enough attention to young people’s financial difficulties. He said the administration was trying to make homes affordable, pointed to immigration and corporate investment as contributors to housing pressure, and advised couples not to wait for a perfect financial moment before starting a family.
Watch the exchange
The YouTube video below shows the opening of Kate White’s housing affordability question and Vance’s initial joke. It is an excerpt, not his full answer. Vance subsequently acknowledged affordability concerns and made the housing claims examined in this article. The complete town hall transcript includes the exchange from about 18:07. Fox News also carries a longer affordability segment.
Video not playing? Watch the excerpt directly on YouTube, or read the full exchange.
Claim: Texas home listing prices rose 100% under Biden
Vance said Texas home listing prices had risen by “literally 100 percent” under the Biden administration. He also said earlier in the town hall that the state’s home listing prices had doubled during Biden’s four years in office.
But the Realtor.com median listing-price series published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis shows a median asking price of $299,900 in December 2020, before Biden took office, and $359,500 in December 2024, near the end of his presidency. That is a rise of 19.9%.
Using January 2021 and January 2025 instead produces an increase of about 18.7%, again nowhere near 100%. The data measure advertised asking prices, not what buyers ultimately paid. Monthly median figures can also change with the mixture of homes listed, so they are not a measure of price appreciation for identical properties. Nevertheless, this is the relevant series for checking Vance’s specific claim about listing prices.
It is possible for a household’s monthly mortgage costs to rise far more sharply than the home’s price when interest rates increase. That distinction matters, but it cannot explain a claim that listing prices themselves doubled.
Claim: Texas listing prices have fallen around 2.5%
This part of Vance’s answer was substantially supported. In the same response he said the median Texas listing price had fallen by about 2.5% over the previous year. The Federal Reserve’s Realtor.com series puts the figure at $364,950 in September 2025 and $355,765 in September 2026, a fall of approximately 2.5%.
A year-on-year decline in asking prices is not, by itself, evidence that homes have become affordable for all first-time buyers. Borrowing costs, income, deposits, local market conditions and the supply of suitable homes all matter.
That distinction is especially important in the current market. Realtor.com’s September 2026 housing report found that US mortgage rates had climbed above 7%, fewer properties were going under contract and more sellers were cutting asking prices. The Texas Real Estate Research Center also reported that elevated borrowing costs and economic uncertainty were weighing on the state’s market. Its September report draws principally on July sales figures, rather than September transactions.
Falling asking prices can therefore reflect weaker buyer demand as well as improved negotiating power for those who can still afford to purchase. The 2.5% decline cited by Vance occurred during the Trump–Vance administration, but that timing alone does not demonstrate that administration policies caused the fall. Equally, it does not establish that families are better able to meet mortgage payments. The more useful test of affordability is what a typical household must pay relative to its income, not the asking-price change in isolation.
Claim: Wall Street has already been banned from buying American homes
Vance also said the administration had already stopped Wall Street from buying up American homes. The Trump administration has taken steps in that direction, including a January executive order and the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.
But the law’s main prohibition on qualifying large institutional investors buying additional single-family homes does not take effect until 7 January 2027, according to the US Treasury. It generally applies to investors with control over at least 350 such properties and contains exceptions. It is not a universal ban on every corporate home purchase.
A broader argument about affordability
Vance attributed some of the rise in housing costs to undocumented immigration, citing a figure of 20 million people. He did not establish at the town hall how that figure was calculated or how many of those individuals had bought homes. Immigration, household formation, housing supply, interest rates and construction costs are all relevant to housing demand and prices, and a single causal explanation requires supporting evidence.
There is also no dispute that many prospective buyers face a substantial affordability problem. The national median listing price was $419,250 in September 2026, close to the figure White mentioned, while elevated mortgage rates have made monthly repayments more difficult.
The finding
The viral clip is genuine but incomplete. Vance did open with a joke, and he also went on to address the student’s question. His claim that Texas asking prices doubled under Biden, however, is not supported by comparable listing-price data. His statement about a roughly 2.5% recent decline is supported, while describing the Wall Street purchase restriction as already in force overstates the law’s current reach.
Those distinctions matter more than the exchange becoming another short-lived political clip. White’s question was about whether young Americans can realistically afford the homes and family lives they are being encouraged to pursue.
Sources
- Roll Call Factba.se, full transcript of 29 October 2026 town hall
- Roll Call Factba.se, full town hall video
- Fox News, affordability exchange video
- Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, Texas median listing prices (Realtor.com)
- Realtor.com, September 2026 national housing trends
- Texas Real Estate Research Center, September 2026 housing insight
- US Treasury, institutional investor rulemaking, October 2026
- 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, Public Law 119-101
