> The only way home prices 'decline' is with population decline, coercion, a recession, or significant regulatory, cultural, and financial shifts.
~2 million people 55+ die every year in the US, and immigration has come to a halt. Not all of those folks will have owned a home, but the vast majority of them will have (first citation), and those homes will be sold. There will be no mass layoff recession due to structural demographics.
Could the US have encouraged more workers to go into the trades with better wages and unions to increase the rate at which the US built houses? Certainly, that was a policy path, and the path I would've chosen. Was impairing inbound immigration another path to destroy domestic housing demand to reduce competition for it when the choice was made to not use policy to increase unit delivery to increase supply (with rising interest rates causing existing home valuations to fall)? It appears so.
US Census: Annual Homeownership Rates for the United States by Age Group: 1982-2025 - https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/charts/fig07.pdf
Population Decline Was Decades Away. Now It’s At America’s Door - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-01-31/popula... | https://archive.today/VVOUJ - January 31st, 2026
The US Is Flirting With Its First-Ever Population Decline - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-30/trump-imm... | https://archive.today/LdA0d - January 30th, 2026
US Population Growth Slows Sharply Due to Less Immigration - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-27/us-popula... | https://archive.today/ePDmG - January 27th, 2026
Map Shows 21 States Where Deaths Now Outnumber Births - https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-21-states-where-deaths-no... - June 30th, 2025
US Population Set to Shrink by 2033 Without Immigration, CBO Says - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-27/us-popula... | https://archive.today/NdTvX - March 27th, 2025