Did the cost of buying a home double under Joe Biden, as JD Vance said?
JD Vance
Statement: “Under the previous administration … the cost of a median-price home in America more than doubled, and that was just in four years.”
In a speech to the National League of Cities, Vice President JD Vance said home costs got out of control under former President Joe Biden.
"Under the previous administration, I’ll get a little bit political, the cost of a median-price home in America more than doubled, and that was just in four years," Vance said March 10.
When we asked Vance’s staff where this statistic came from, they pointed us to a May 2024 blog post by the conservative Heritage Foundation that said, "In roughly three years, the cost of a median price home has more than doubled, increasing 114.5% since Biden took office."
The Heritage Foundation article didn’t cite a source for that figure, which is far higher than the home price increases recorded by four government and private-sector metrics. But when rising mortgage rates are factored in, we found Vance’s statement is accurate.
EJ Antoni, one of the Heritage article’s co-authors, told PolitiFact that historically, interest rates and home prices have moved in opposite directions, with the fluctuations tending to cancel out.
But during the Biden administration, "The sharp rise in both home prices and interest rates caused the cost of homeownership to rise very quickly from a historical perspective," he said, adding that "a monthly mortgage payment is what has to fit in a family’s budget, not the selling price of the home."
Various metrics show home price increases, but not a doubling
It’s important to distinguish between home prices, which is the most commonly tracked metric, and all financial aspects of a home purchase, experts said.
For home prices alone, we found four metrics. Each uses a distinct methodology, and some are better at capturing certain aspects of the housing market than others. But results for all four broadly aligned — and none showed house prices doubling.
Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development figures show that from the first quarter of 2021, when Biden took office, to the fourth quarter of 2024, when Biden’s presidency was almost done, the median home sales price rose from $355,000 to $419,200, an 18% increase.
S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index figures show a 37% increase on Biden’s watch.
The Zillow Home Value Index, calculated by the online real estate site, shows home values rose under Biden from $267,985 to $355,327, a 33% increase.
Finally, the National Association of Realtors produces an index for existing home sales. Under Biden, the median single-family home sales price rose from $311,900 to $409,300, a 31% increase. The median for all home sales, not just single-family homes, rose by a similar amount, the association said.
Donald R. Haurin, an Ohio State University emeritus economics professor, told PolitiFact he checked the federal data set and couldn’t find a ZIP code where prices doubled. He also looked at an independent tracker for the 50 markets with the most dramatic house price increases and found the largest increase in any market was 82.8%, in Edwards, Colorado, a resort area with a population of a little over 11,000 people.
Adding in the cost of mortgages and other home-purchase items
However, there’s a more holistic way to look at the cost of buying a home than sales price alone.
This measures what academics sometimes call "user cost" — what most homebuyers actually spend when purchasing a home. This includes mortgage interest payments, the forgone earnings of a down payment, property taxes and maintenance.
Haurin did a back-of-the-envelope calculation and found that, using this measurement, the cost of buying a home roughly doubled during Biden’s tenure.
The main additional variable in this calculation is the mortgage rate, which was low in January 2021 (about 2.7%) and high in December 2024 (about 6.7%). Using the home prices and the prevailing mortgage rates, this calculation roughly doubles the costs, Haurin said.
Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, co-director of the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate at Columbia University, agreed with Haurin’s estimate.
"The user cost of owning a home has gone up a lot more than the price of houses," Van Nieuwerburgh said.
One caveat: Not every homebuyer has a mortgage. The percentage of buyers who are purchasing homes for cash is at a decadelong high, at 32%. The rate is lower for primary residences (19%) and higher for vacation homes and investment purchases. Still, a large majority of buyers do have to factor in a mortgage.
PolitiFact's ruling
Vance said, "Under the previous administration … the cost of a median-price home in America more than doubled, and that was just in four years."
According to four government and private-sector metrics, home sales prices alone didn’t double under Biden.
However, if you factor in associated costs, most notably fast-rising mortgage rates, the price tag doubled on Biden’s watch.
Vance’s statement is accurate but needs clarification. That’s our definition of Mostly True.
Our sources
- JD Vance, speech to the National League of Cities, March 10, 2025
- Heritage Foundation, "Biden’s Housing Headache," May 31, 2024
- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Median Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States, accessed March 11, 2025
- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, "30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Average in the United States," accessed March 11, 2025
- Email interview with Spencer High, communications manager with the National Association of Realtors, March 11, 2025
- Email interview with Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, co-director of the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate at Columbia University, March 10, 2025
- Email interview with EJ Antoni, research fellow in the Heritage Foundation's Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, March 12, 2025
- Email interview with Donald R. Haurin, Ohio State University emeritus economics professor, March 10, 2025
- White House, statement to PolitiFact, March 11, 2025