With a historically high shortage of homes and an extremely low mortgage rate, the U.S. is positioning itself to enter one of the most devastating economic crises in recent history. Based on the platform Biden ran on, we can make certain assumptions about how the real estate environment might look under his administration. However, it’s important to note this is relative to how much priority the Biden Administration places on housing issues compared to the rest of his platform in the upcoming four years.

Biden released a $640 million dollar housing plan that provides a down payment tax credit of up to 15,000 dollars, which could be useful to first time buyers given that the median house price has been increasing in recent years. Additionally, Biden stated that he would tweak 1031 exchanges, known as like-kind exchanges, which would allow for investors selling a property to defer capital gains taxes if they put the money from the sale into another property. This initiative would only be limited to individuals making under $400,000 a year. He then plans to use the capital gains taxes from those making above that limit to fund a $775 billion plan for child and senior car for ten years.

However, given that commercial real estate is not considered one of the key issues of Biden’s platform, it could be a while before serious changes are enacted. Many experts agree that it will likely be the coronavirus causing much more damaging impacts rather than public policy.

“The outside events that are not directly controlled by American public policy, tend to have a much greater impact on the commercial real estate market than the specifics that come out of Washington,” Sandy Paul, senior managing director of national market research at Newmark Knight Frank’s Washington DC office said in an interview with GlobalST.com.

Overall, the next four years have the potential to help reshape the real estate business as we know it. A lot will depend who takes power in the Senate in the upcoming Georgia race. Time will tell how impactful the Biden White House will be and what policies they were be able to pass through to help bolster the market.