At a Fox News town hall in Fort Worth, Texas on October 29, 2026, Kate White — a student at Texas Christian University and a member of a conservative campus organization — stood up and asked Vice President JD Vance a simple, devastating question: how are young Americans supposed to get married, start families, and buy homes when the median existing-home price has hit $417,500? Vance thanked her. Then he made a joke about a senator’s butt.
The Question Was Serious. The Opening Wasn’t.
White’s exact words to Vance: “How does the right and yourself expect us to start families young when you know the average price of a home in America now costs more than $415,000, which just feels out of reach for us.” She wasn’t asking as a political opponent. She’s vice president of TCU’s Turning Point USA chapter — part of the conservative base that Vance was in Texas to energize. The question came from inside the house.
What Vance said first, before touching a single housing number: “I’ve only been asked one question about Jon Husted’s a** and it was by Jesse Watters.” Jon Husted, the Republican senator from Ohio, had become an unlikely campaign punchline after President Trump repeatedly commented on Husted’s physique — his football build, his backside, his shoulders — at rallies throughout October. Vance folded that running joke into a room full of young people asking how they’re supposed to afford to live. Fox News host Jesse Watters laughed. The rest of the exchange circulated widely on social media after political commentator Aaron Rupar posted the clip on X.
Q: How do you expect us to start families young when the average price of a home feels out of reach?
JD VANCE: I want to point out that I’ve only gotten one question about Jon Husted’s ass https://t.co/mFgYuuRQIN
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 30, 2026
The Numbers Behind Her Question
The housing data White was pointing to is not a talking point — it’s a documented collapse in first-time buyer access. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the median existing-home sale price reached $417,500 in September 2026, marking the 39th consecutive month of year-over-year price increases. In the West, that median climbs to $613,600. In metro areas like San Jose, the median single-family home price sits at $1,920,000.
First-time buyers now represent just 21% of all home purchases — a record low, according to NAR’s annual buyer survey. The median age of a first-time buyer has reached 40 years old, also an all-time high. And when those buyers do manage to close, they’re spending an average of 36.3% of their income on the mortgage payment alone, according to NAR’s Q3 2026 affordability report. For context: the standard affordability threshold most lenders use is 28–30%. First-time buyers are already over it before property taxes, insurance, or maintenance.
The Mortgage Bankers Association adds another layer: mortgage payments rose 7.1% year-over-year through September 2026, while wages grew roughly 4% over the same period. The gap between what homes cost and what people earn is not closing — it’s widening.
Vance Did Answer — and That’s Also Part of the Problem
To be accurate: Vance eventually addressed the substance of White’s question. He pointed to undocumented immigration, Wall Street investors buying residential properties, foreign investment, and Biden-era price increases as drivers of the housing crisis. He noted that Texas listing prices had declined 2.5%. He acknowledged, in his own words, that Republicans had not paid enough attention to young Americans’ financial struggles.
But then he told White not to wait for perfect financial conditions before starting a family. Watters backed him up by suggesting couples sometimes get pregnant and figure out the money afterward. The encouragement was real. The policy mechanism that makes a $417,500 home reachable for a 24-year-old on a starter salary was not in the room.
That’s the contradiction White surfaced — not just for Vance, but for a broader political culture that talks constantly about marriage rates, birth rates, and the importance of family formation while the financial infrastructure those families require keeps getting further out of reach. Homeownership used to be a beginning. For millions of Americans, it has become something you approach at 40 — if at all.
- how the American Dream became unaffordable for young people
