Republican Party of New Mexico

07/07/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 07/07/2026 14:04

MARKER: WASHINGTON CREATED THE HOUSING CRISIS — HERE’S HOW NEW MEXICO FIGHTS BACK

IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 7, 2026

Albuquerque, NM - Republican U.S. Senate candidate Larry Marker today unveiled a two-part housing affordability agenda for New Mexico, targeting the two forces most responsible for pricing young families out of homeownership: Wall Street corporations buying up single-family homes, and the surge of illegal immigration that a new Federal Reserve study links directly to rising home prices and rents nationwide.

"For a generation of young New Mexicans, the American dream of owning a home and starting a family isn't slipping away; it's being actively taken from them," Marker said. "Washington created this crisis. It's time New Mexico started fighting back."

Stop Letting Wall Street Own Main Street.

Marker called for a fundamental realignment of New Mexico's property tax structure to end what he called a "rigged system" that treats a family buying their first home the same as a corporate investment fund acquiring its ten-thousandth one.

"Blackstone doesn't need a property tax break," Marker said. "A young couple in Albuquerque trying to buy their first home does."

Marker's proposal would cut or eliminate property taxes for owner-occupied single-family residences, while tripling the property tax rate for corporate entities-hedge funds, private equity firms, and institutional investors-acquiring single-family homes. The policy would directly realign financial incentives that currently allow Wall Street funds to outbid families at scale, turning would-be starter homes into perpetual rental inventory.

"Right now, we have a system that is perfectly designed to produce the outcome we have," Marker said. "Corporations get the same tax treatment as families, so they can buy in bulk, hold forever, and never sell. Every house a company like Blackstone takes off the market is a house a New Mexico family never gets to buy. We should make that business model painful, and we should make homeownership cheaper. It's not complicated."

The Demand Side Nobody Will Talk About.

Marker also called out what he described as the most glaring blind spot in the national housing affordability debate: the impact of illegal immigration on housing demand and costs.

A working paper published this year by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found that the surge in illegal immigration during the Biden administration contributed to approximately 30% of the growth in home prices and roughly 20% of the increase in rents nationally between 2021 and 2024. During that period, an estimated net 7 million illegal immigrants entered the country before enforcement began tightening in mid-2024.

"Every economist in Washington will tell you that housing costs are a supply-and-demand problem," Marker said. "They'll talk about zoning laws, interest rates, and years of underbuilding. Those things matter. But the moment you mention the demand side and illegal immigration in the same sentence, suddenly supply and demand doesn't apply anymore. That's not economics. That's ideology."

Marker argued the consequences fall hardest on working- and middle-class Americans, particularly younger buyers trying to enter the market for the first time.

"For a 28-year-old in Rio Rancho or Las Cruces, a 30% increase in home prices is the difference between buying a house and starting a family or renting forever," Marker said. "That is a generation of New Mexicans being priced out of the life their parents had, and the border policies of the Biden administration and Senator Luján's party are a documented, measurable part of why."

Marker noted that the Federal Reserve finding stands in direct contrast to the posture of Democrats who simultaneously claim to champion housing affordability and oppose every meaningful measure to control illegal immigration.

"You cannot claim to care about housing costs for working Americans and then support policies that added 7 million people to the housing demand side of the ledger in three years," Marker said. "Senator Luján has voted against border security and voted for the policies that produced that surge. New Mexicans deserve a senator who can do basic math."

Marker said his housing agenda reflects a straightforward principle: the rules should work for families, not against them.

"Cut taxes for families who own their home. Triple taxes on the hedge funds trying to take that home away from them. Secure the border so demand doesn't outpace supply by millions of people a year," Marker said. "That's how you make housing affordable again. Not with another federal program, not with another press conference - with policies that actually change the incentives."

Larry Marker is a Republican candidate for the United States Senate in New Mexico.

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Republican Party of New Mexico published this content on July 07, 2026, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on July 07, 2026 at 20:04 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]