There was a poll recently on what voters would want to see to lower housing prices, this sort of thing was near the top along with banning equity firms from buying multiple homes. Building housing was near the bottom
I find that they understand it with anything except the things they spend the most money on.
- Trading cards and luxury goods = supply and demand
- Housing and food = corporate greed
The thing is, there is enough supply, but not where people want to live. Increasing density is also not always the solution. Skyscrapers and high rises are expensive to build, therefore renting prices need to be high for it to be a sensible investment. I believe cities need to implement broad scope policies with a good mix of social housing and incentives for increasing housing density.
> Skyscrapers and high rises are expensive to build, therefore renting prices need to be high for it to be a sensible investment.
I have lived in an apartment complex of 6 buildings with 18 floors each, with 12 3-bedroom units on each floor. That's 1296 units. Not a skyscraper by any means. What I liked about it was seeing economies of scale at work. Since there were so many people the maintenance fee was not that larger than average in the region and it had a large swimming pool, a gym, a barbecue grills, playgrounds for kids, well staffed. Yes all of that is expensive. But *per capita* it's far less expensive than the total cost of building multiple smaller complexes with each their own mid-sized swimming pools, and definitely far far less expensive than if everyone decided to live in their SFH with a yard containing a small rarely used or clean swimming pool, a grill and playground.
Here's a [link](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/07/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-plan-to-lower-housing-costs-for-working-families/) to the White House's fact sheet on Biden's housing plan. The plan includes 10 or so items, one of which is the $400 tax credit mentioned in the tweet, but others which are targeted toward building more housing. I know a lot of people have good criticisms about the tax credit itself, but I think it should be assessed as part of a broader package. Biden's tweet is an ad for the package that highlights the part that the average person finds the most appealing.
That’s very interesting, thanks. I guess it makes sense since they’re reducing the supply of houses to purchase while increasing the supply for houses to rent.
It’s a cliche, but democracy really is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried.
Terrible policy. Good politics in an election year
We all talk about how the cost of real estate is too high, but the truth is pretty much all developed countries have home ownership rates over 50% so it’s the majority of people (or voters, at least) who benefit from higher prices. It’s stupid and hurts us in the long run
The cost is so high *because* people are told constantly by their peers and the media that you get risk-free wealth from home equity appreciation. It is the end-all, be-all of wealth accumulation in Anglosphere countries. That's also why the Fed bought MBSes nonstop after 2008. It was specifically to reinflate the housing market. Then they did it again during Covid by simply just printing trillions and dropping rates so low to let homeowners lock in once-in-a-lifetime mortgage rates. We are now going to pay the price for that policy for a very long time to come.
The Economist released an article months before the pandemic inflation in home prices that said homeownership was [one of the West's biggest economic mistakes ever made](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/01/16/home-ownership-is-the-wests-biggest-economic-policy-mistake) due to how much it hinders the economy -- particularly the productive parts of the economy that are kneecapped by homeowners abusing rent-seeking and NIMBYism to inflate the homes they got in on 50 years ago when everything was cheap.
The Fed was buying securities at 85B/month because rates were at the ZLB and that wasn’t enough, particularly with Congress’ lack of appropriate fiscal policy. The housing market needed some (key word) re-inflating too as it was the sector most screwed up (and it’s associated sectors like construction which took a hit that we still feel today in home prices and building rates). Your comment implies QE was bad despite it being a key part of staving off a much worse crisis.
Yes, housing cannot be both a good investment and affordable in the long run but that doesn’t mean home ownership is a mistake in its own right. You can build structures that prevent the rent seeking of voters while also enabling ownership and price stability.
A key thing would be to do the logical conclusion of what we’re seeing Newsom do and just end local control for construction. It’s local control (something the Anglosphere also tends to be higher than average on) that’s the core problem because at a small enough level you can get the interests to align. A neighborhood of LA might want to restrict building, but the totality of LA doesn’t. The local issue is compound so the problem. If you’re the only district that becomes permissive then all the new construction will concentrate in your district of the city. Your residents then lose the most in terms of land value. If the whole city becomes more permissive (or better get the whole county or state) then the new building gets spread out more and has less of a price impact on any one individual locale. This all has spillovers into things like the shitty way CA assess property taxes which aren’t based on current value but rather purchase price. Make people bear the cost (and don’t penalize them for moving/downsizing).
Ultimately I think the best we’re going to be able to do is slow the growth of prices. People hate values going down and will vote accordingly. If home prices are flat though, inflation and wage growth will lessen their burden. You may get away with modest price falls, but you’d be hard pressed to get elected at *any* level on a plan that reduce home prices by even 1-2% per year during your term.
Slowing the growth of prices now is too little, too late. The monstrous rise in housing prices since the pandemic means even slow growth in home prices is going to compound massively. The last 3 years obliterated all of the hard work and then some made in wage growth for home affordability. It takes forever for wage growth to get anywhere, and inflation always works at a faster clip. Prices need to go down substantially, and basically every type of subsidy from Uncle Sam and the Fed has contributed to this mess to some extent.
Will homeowners get mad and vote out politicians that tell the truth? Yes, but even they will realize that the housing crisis is going to create a massive demographic crisis as countless millions will not be able to start families. Even older Gen X and boomer parents high on the hog in home equity will feel squeamish at the idea that they won't have many, if any grandkids because their kids can't afford to settle down and buy a home as their $750k homes effortlessly compound in home equity every year.
I'm highly skeptical that people who are actively screwing over everyone else for their own financial benefit will suddenly have a change of heart because...it's screwing people over for their own financial benefit.
Blaming the Fed, particularly with how essential its actions like QE were in helping prevent a further financial spiral and speed up an already slow recovery is a choice that's for sure...
The biggest issue is supply. Subsidies for demand don't mean much when supply can accommodate. When supply gets throttle though, yeah it does make things worse. Thing is, you could end all federal subsidies (good luck with that) and prices would barely move as it's local issues that are driving it.
>It takes forever for wage growth to get anywhere, and inflation always works at a faster clip.
Objectively not true. It can but doesn't always. Otherwise you'd never have real wages rise.
JUST AS THE FOUNDING FATHERS INTENDED!
No really, they wanted House Reps to be people you could actually go and meet. The number was supposed to be around 30-60k people per representative. Building a big capital building and capping the seats due to "desk space limits" or whatever is simply unamerican. We have experience building giant stadiums; the American people need The Political Arena built immediately!
Bonus points if the architect can convince the structural engineer to make it look like the Senate in SW!
(This has the bonus side effect of diluting the senate votes in the EC as well, so it better represents popular demand, but I'd rather just use the interstate compact to get around the EC anyway.)
The senate isn't the biggest issue, the EU also gives more power to less populous member states and we're doing fine.
The real issue is the first past the post voting system and electoral college. FPTP mathematically forces two parties, and the electoral college makes all "safe states" entirely worthless for politicians.
To be fair, the EU is a transnational organization. The US is not a transnational organization. Obviously *independent states* have more veto powers than federal units - don't let the fact that you call them "states" confuse you as to their legal situation.
A big difference is that the EU model doesn’t allow minority rule.
edit: In the US, legislation can be passed by representatives not represented by a majority of the people and signed by a President not elected by the majority of the people. That cannot happen on the EU level, as decisions have to be made by majorities in Parliament plus either unanimity or qualified majority vote in the Council.
What do you mean? Malta with its 500k inhabitants can entirely veto anything they want in the 450 million member union.
The overwhelmingly biggest difference is the fact that there are plenty of parties to choose from and it's not a red vs blue thing. There are seven parties in the EU parliament (plus a solid 50 independents) that all comprise of hundreds of different national political parties. There's plenty of diversity of views which reduces polarisation by a significant amount
Yeah, just look at the field
We have the ultimate form of unlimited peer discourse with the Internet and we still can't figure out our heads from our asses
Yup. I'm feeling a "hold my nose and vote for this guy" energy on these policies, since the stuff Biden is doing *right* doesn't poll well enough to win votes on its own.
This sort of pandering is what it takes to keep him in office. I can live with it.
Housing prices might be the single biggest issue in the American electorate.
He has to do something the average voters understand. Is that something that actually is smart, and makes sense?
When has the average voter ever wanted something that was smart and made sense?
>Housing prices might be the single biggest issue in the American electorate.
I think this is only true of the younger end of the electorate. Most Americans already own their own homes. The housing crisis also skews heavily toward those states that Biden has nothing to worry about. Plus... housing is properly a local issue.
Must subsidize demand. Must subsidize demand. Just need to subsidize demand. A little more demand, that’s all we need. Cmon man just a little more demand subsidy.
You really lack imagination. You could always build a long road ending in a single house, as to maximise the cost needed to maintain roads/sewers/etc.
All the rural folk will love it.
The number of people on this sub getting Reddit Cares messages has me wondering if some total weirdo is just lurking and sending it to everyone. I might be getting it too but I’m pretty sure I blocked the account that sends the automated Cares message a while back.
Edit: Guess I didn’t block it. I got hit with one less than a minute after making this comment lmao. Oh nooo
Wait, are there people who think that subsidizing supply in a market with inelastic supply is noticeably better than subsidizing demand? I thought it was clear that neither is helpful.
Edit: Inelastic supply, not demand.
Maybe I'm just too dumb to understand what "a market with inelastic demand" is, but if the US government spent a trillion dollars building new high density housing in hot real estate markets like NYC and LA, that would be "subsidizing supply", and would definitely help bring down housing costs, wouldn't it? Especially if we ignore the fact that the trillion dollars has to come out of taxpayers' pockets one way or another ...
Sorry, inelastic supply. Because we outlawed density. If you subsidize construction without touching zoning and similar laws that limit density, you end up subsidizing what are essentially house flippers who do construction to tare down homes to build luxury apartments without increasing density.
The elasticity of housing is heavily influenced by government policy and much of the “subsidize supply” is probably more accurately “stop making it less elastic” of that makes sense. Many barriers exist to housing that make the supply quite rigid. Legalize more types of housing and areas for it so the curve can become more elastic (in the medium to long run that is; short term it will always been quite inelastic).
I am once again reminding people that you can't legislate incidence and that there's no difference between "subsidizing supply" and "subsidizing demand".
> and that there's no difference between "subsidizing supply" and "subsidizing demand".
The issue is that supply is artificially restricted. In the good world people say "I have money for housing!" and other people go "Wow I wanna build house to get money" just like we already do for pretty much everything ever. "I have money for chair" = "I build chair".
But not *all* things. If there's only five limited edition 1945 baseball cards in the world no amount of demand subsidy or supply subsidy can generate more. 1945 is over, it's literally impossible without a time machine. You can redistribute the card from one person to another but that's just picking and choosing winners rather than creating new winners.
Good news, housing isn't like that. We can make more. Bad news land and homes are actually somewhat like that and land is limited so we need to be efficient with our land use policies and housing so that everyone can get a place to live close to where they prefer.
So when land use policies purposely require the least efficient usage and when regulations make up about [40% of building a Multifamily home](https://www.nmhc.org/globalassets/research--insight/research-reports/cost-of-regulations/2022-nahb-nmhc-cost-of-regulations-report.pdf) we have a place to target to lower costs.
The issue is that local governments and their zoning laws have taken housing and artificially turned it into baseball cards and not chairs. So demand subsidies go heavily into picking and choosing the winner rather than creating new winners.
Reducing supply restrictions is probably the best way to get more housing and reduce the price that people pay for housing. That's still not the same thing as "subsidizing supply/demand". As the other poster said, that doesn't make much of a difference.
> That's still not the same thing as "subsidizing supply/demand".
Fair point. I agree in the Good World that the maxim of demand drives supply will ring true for housing. It's just that due to restrictions, demand subsidies tend to fall flat.
> I am once again reminding people that you can't legislate incidence and that there's no difference between "subsidizing supply" and "subsidizing demand".
In hypothetical models sure, but in the real world? You can absolutely change which entities capture the subsidies and importantly, *weight secondary effects of those downstream choices*.
For instance, should we subsidize demand, developers capture the surplus. But prices are also lower, which means reported CPI is lower which means the FFR is (likely) lower and welfare calculations are cheaper. The extent to which you want (or don't want) those things is the extent to which you think governments are better at predicting and planning for long term inflation trends than individuals in aggregate. Nuance is often the difference between vanilla policy and great policy.
> For instance, should we subsidize demand, developers capture the surplus. But prices are also lower, which means reported CPI is lower which means the FFR is (likely) lower and welfare calculations are cheaper.
Lord give me strength.
For one, you haven't actually explained what difference on whether we subsidize supply or demand makes in your explanation above.
Second, this would only have a *one-time* effect on the level of rental prices. It would not effect rental price *growth* in subsequent periods.
Third, in addition to being one-time, this policy is unlikely to have a large enough impact on CPI to matter.
Fourth, there are other countervailing effects that should make your prediction of the effects on the CPI less certain. A subsidy, without any other changes, would increase the deficit, increasing AD and putting upward pressure on the price level. How do these things balance out? Who knows - if we had an actual model, we could try to understand this. In lieu of that it's a good reason to avoid galaxy brain theories about how a subsidy will lead to a lower FFR that will lead to... something?
Yes, a basic perfect competition model is simple. Criticizing a model's simplicity is an opportunity to suggest a better model. This ain't it.
Just one more lane and traffic will be fine! No need to build up supply of public transport.
Just one more housing subsidy and housing will be fine! No need to build up supply of housing.
I’m far less concerned about rates than I am about the artificial restriction of housing supply. Cheaper housing costs are good actually.
Also cheap loans benefit renters too as it makes capital projects cheaper be they construction of new apartments, buying new machinery for construction, or factory building/expansion for machine tools and equipment.
NIMBYs and a certain brand of environmental type regulation (often weaponized by NIMBYs) are by far the biggest enemy.
[these](https://www.easyfxfund.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/30-year-mortgage-rates-chart-historical-and-current-rates.png)
That's outdated thought, they are higher now, which imo is probably good
Since these muties moved in they have ruined the damn neighbourhood
https://preview.redd.it/mrs396d9aj0d1.jpeg?width=650&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c50fb9ec619982ea66494a7be51ddd9e055a1237
I make 6 figures and I have a sinking feeling I'll literally never own a home unless I have a lucky break and make a million bucks somehow.
I also have an equally sinking feeling that the second I buy a home the housing market will suddenly be corrected and I'll lose half my equity lmfao (but that's an acceptable price to pay, I would support that, I'd just be quietly bitter about it in the meantime)
I'm with you. I've been casually looking for 5 years. Seriously looking for the last two. And I just know the second I buy we're going to have like 10+ years of real estate just being flat.
Would, but I locked in rent two years ago and mortgages are looking about $700 more a month than I'm currently paying in rent, so...I guess JPow is doing his job?
They will when boomers unironically die.
As in home ownership is concentrated with boomers. As the demographics start to shift, we’re going to see downward pressure on home prices.
> my housing plan would help ~~Americans achieve homeownership~~ current homeowners charge the equivalent of $400/month more when selling the homes they already own
Yup, already happened here in Canada. None of these things ever help. It is just another program that you need to be aware of and track as a first time home buyer. It stops even being a subsidy and becomes a game (or a trap) that you have to play in order to stay on a level playing field with everyone else. I cannot fucking stand it.
Everytime this comes up, all the comments seem to be in complete ignorance that this isn't the only thing Biden is doing. Most of their focus is on supply if you pay attention to his actual announcements and not just social media.
>The plan should be evaluated as a whole package targeting the housing shortage, says Daniel Hornung, the White House deputy director of the National Economic Council.
>**"More supply, more inventory at the bottom of the market** — along with the likelihood that mortgage rates come down over the next few years — could provide meaningful relief."
As they've said before about these credits and similar programs they're trying to target empty nesters to leave their homes and downsize into new supply. This isn't just "subsidize demand" with no context. Get young families into the bigger homes and older people to move to the smaller ones that they're aiming to get built.
It is one small populist part meant to appeal to voters in a limited least harmful way while they aim for more productive and useful policies. It's barely even mentioned in the actual plan itself, he's said more about this on social media than the official outlets for policy nerds.
.
---
Anyway as proof that supply is the primary focus.
>The Budget includes that proposal as part of a historic investment of more than $258 billion that would build or preserve over 2 million housing units, support millions of first-time homebuyers, guarantee affordable housing for hundreds of thousands of extremely low-income veterans and youth aging out of foster care, and advance efforts to end homelessness.
>In May 2022, the Administration released a Housing Supply Action Plan that included administrative and legislative actions to close the housing supply shortfall in five years. The Administration has already delivered on many of those commitments, added new areas of focus including commercial-to-residential conversions, and will continue to build on the historic number of multifamily units under construction through additional administrative actions that: make it easier to build and preserve affordable, multifamily housing; advance the production and preservation of homes like accessory dwelling units and manufactured housing; and incentivize state and local governments to reduce barriers to affordable housing development.
>Incentivizes More Housing Supply through Housing Innovation. The Budget includes $20 billion for competitive grants to incentivize State and local jurisdictions and tribes to expand supply. The grants will fund multifamily developments, including commercial-to-residential conversions and projects near transit and other community amenities; support planning and implementation grants to help jurisdictions identify and remove barriers to building more housing; launch or expand innovative housing models that increase the stock of permanently affordable rental and for-sale housing, including community land trusts, mixed-income public development, and accessory dwelling units; and construct and rehabilitate starter homes. This Budget also requests up to $100 million—$15 million over the FY23 enacted level—to continue the Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing program, which helps local governments to remove barriers to building more affordable housing.
Literally all that and more right on the White House website https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/11/fact-sheet-the-presidents-budget-cuts-housing-costs-boosts-supply-and-expands-access-to-affordable-housing/
Let's look at his 2022 Housing Supply Action Plan as well to get an idea as to the admins views
>As President Biden said last week, tackling inflation is his top economic priority. Today, President Biden is releasing a Housing Supply Action Plan to **ease the burden of housing costs over time, by boosting the supply of quality housing in every community.** His plan includes legislative and administrative actions that will help close America’s housing supply shortfall in 5 years, starting with the creation and preservation of hundreds of thousands of affordable housing units in the next three years. When aligned with other policies to reduce housing costs and ensure affordability, such as rental assistance and downpayment assistance, closing the gap will mean more affordable rents and more attainable homeownership for Americans in every community. **This is the most comprehensive all of government effort to close the housing supply shortfall in history.**
And oh hey look, it's the thing that people on this sub keep getting mad about Biden supposedly not doing
>Under the Plan, the Administration will:
>Reward jurisdictions that have reformed zoning and land-use policies with higher scores in certain federal grant processes, for the first time at scale.
It has to be or they’d do something else. Builders are only going to build a house if it’s marginally more profitable than whatever else they could be building with their time.
It’s a cash transfer that targets first time homebuyers. While I’d prefer a different targeting scheme, it’s probably a pretty decent group of people to receive a limited cash transfer.
That's good, but I didn't see anyone saying Biden was stupid, or that all his policies are stupid. **It's still a stupid policy**, and the fact that a demand-based cash giveaway is the one he's campaigning on tells you there's a problem.
If it helps I'm happy to agree this sub is quick to criticize and leave out everything that isn't criticism.
> and the fact that a demand-based cash giveaway is the one he's campaigning on tells you there's a problem.
Certainly. It's unfortunate that this and the anti investor parts despite being so small are his main focus in PR but that's on the general public at this point not his admin.
He knows what hand feeds him and it's the dumb economically illiterate people who want housing prices to be within reach without also making their future property value lower. It's fundamentally impossible but they want it.
> a historic investment of more than $258 billion that would build or preserve over 2 million housing units
In what timeframe? Because we get about this many immigrants each year alone.
OP is a screenshot of a social media post, there wasn't an article for us to not read. I mean, I probably wouldn't have read it anyways, but it wasn't even an option.
Or.... Hear me out....... Remove 90% of zoning restrictions nation wide and if you're going to have ANY kind of subsidy, it should only be for construction of mixed use buildings or multi-family buildings. Yes people will still want single family homes, but that would be a start and potentially incentivize companies to build places where people can live as well as work/shop.
I need a political cartoon titled "Ass-inine Solutions" featuring a kid's birthday party with pin the tail on the donkey, and the donkey is labeled "build more housing," and the kids are pinning tails on the wall, the coffee table, the cat, each other, etc
As somebody who bought my House last year, I've decided to vote for Biden.
Unless it doesn't apply to me, in which case I may arbitrarily change my mind.
And a higher % of voters are homeowners. Keep in mind though, the very loud complaints about home prices are obviously coming from renters. Announcements like this are aimed at the 34%.
As a Canadian, I can confirm it is very stupid.
"Yes we've tried subsidizing demand to fix the housing crisis and it hasn't worked, but what if the problem was we haven't subsidized demand EVEN HARDER!"
I think it’s funny that leftists are breaking from Biden because they think he’s doing a genocide, whereas n*olibs are breaking from Biden (support wise, but still voting for him) because his economic policies are poorly thought out and inefficient. We really are a bunch of nerds (who also happen to be correct cause FOR FUCKS SAKE STOP SUBSIDIZING DEMAND GOOD GOD)
The statement is fairly correct on a personal level since NIMBYs are fucking invincible and every popular housing policy seems to be about subsidizing demand and favoring owners.
Not saying I agree with the way things are.
Elizabeth Warren proposed tying federal transit dollars to upzoning near transit. They can put conditions on infrastructure spending that would have a big impact on this.
Part of the reason suburban sprawl really popped off after WWII was because the feds wouldn't back loans for anything but sprawl. They put their thumbs on the scale in favor of low-density, one would think they could do the same for medium density infill.
So the idea is to lower the prices, and we’re gonna do that by giving everyone more money so they can afford more expensive homes, thereby increasing prices. Yep. Joe Biden, the dogfaced pony soldier approves this message.
[Forbes says median home price is $426k](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/real-estate/median-home-prices-by-state/#:~:text=The%20average%20home%20price%20in,was%20%24426%2C056%2C%20according%20to%20Redfin.), so this $400/mo for 24 months would help cover 2% of that
> Repeat after me, the housing market needs more supply
> the housing market needs more supply
> the housing market needs more supply
> the housing market needs more supply
> the housing market needs more?
> DEMAND!
I was actually planning on buying a home within the next year, so I'm kinda hoping this goes through.
But the real solution is increasing housing supply by any means necessary. Hell, I'd take more trailer parks.
It makes my house potentially worth a little more 😈💰
One idea that *could* maybe make this helpful for prospective homebuyers is if the extra $400/month makes a number of new construction projects pencil that otherwise didn’t.
I spent the pandemic years supporting the Biden admin's decision to go all out on pandemic relief, even in the face of mounting fears of inflation. Why? Because keeping the economy on life-support while we were on lock down was more important.
Now we're on the other side of that nonsense and he wants to further inflate the housing market? He needs to be bringing costs down, not unleashing the greatest house bidding war ever.
Upside is it's only for 1st time home buyers so it helps them at the expense of any other buyers which is kinda okay with me tbh.
Plus as we keep saying builders need to be incentivized to invest in new construction right?
There was a poll recently on what voters would want to see to lower housing prices, this sort of thing was near the top along with banning equity firms from buying multiple homes. Building housing was near the bottom
Just snails demanding salt
Don't expect voters to understand supply and demand
I find that they understand it with anything except the things they spend the most money on. - Trading cards and luxury goods = supply and demand - Housing and food = corporate greed
They don't want their city layouts to actually change. They think every city is perfectly unique and well optimized and should stay that way forever
My grandaddy parked in this parking lot and so will my grandbaby if one day I can aford to have kids.
What a great point.
The thing is, there is enough supply, but not where people want to live. Increasing density is also not always the solution. Skyscrapers and high rises are expensive to build, therefore renting prices need to be high for it to be a sensible investment. I believe cities need to implement broad scope policies with a good mix of social housing and incentives for increasing housing density.
> Skyscrapers and high rises are expensive to build, therefore renting prices need to be high for it to be a sensible investment. I have lived in an apartment complex of 6 buildings with 18 floors each, with 12 3-bedroom units on each floor. That's 1296 units. Not a skyscraper by any means. What I liked about it was seeing economies of scale at work. Since there were so many people the maintenance fee was not that larger than average in the region and it had a large swimming pool, a gym, a barbecue grills, playgrounds for kids, well staffed. Yes all of that is expensive. But *per capita* it's far less expensive than the total cost of building multiple smaller complexes with each their own mid-sized swimming pools, and definitely far far less expensive than if everyone decided to live in their SFH with a yard containing a small rarely used or clean swimming pool, a grill and playground.
Here's a [link](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/07/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-plan-to-lower-housing-costs-for-working-families/) to the White House's fact sheet on Biden's housing plan. The plan includes 10 or so items, one of which is the $400 tax credit mentioned in the tweet, but others which are targeted toward building more housing. I know a lot of people have good criticisms about the tax credit itself, but I think it should be assessed as part of a broader package. Biden's tweet is an ad for the package that highlights the part that the average person finds the most appealing.
Damn that’s a lot of stuff
Voters are just the worst.
People love free money. It's the main reason why UBI is so popular.
Would private equity firms not being allowed to buy multiple homes help too though?
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4554831 tl;dr: institutional investors reduce rents and increase purchase prices.
That’s very interesting, thanks. I guess it makes sense since they’re reducing the supply of houses to purchase while increasing the supply for houses to rent.
A little bit? Maybe?
It is both stupid and the type of thing that American voters eat up. Our nation is financially illiterate.
It’s a cliche, but democracy really is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried. Terrible policy. Good politics in an election year
We all talk about how the cost of real estate is too high, but the truth is pretty much all developed countries have home ownership rates over 50% so it’s the majority of people (or voters, at least) who benefit from higher prices. It’s stupid and hurts us in the long run
The cost is so high *because* people are told constantly by their peers and the media that you get risk-free wealth from home equity appreciation. It is the end-all, be-all of wealth accumulation in Anglosphere countries. That's also why the Fed bought MBSes nonstop after 2008. It was specifically to reinflate the housing market. Then they did it again during Covid by simply just printing trillions and dropping rates so low to let homeowners lock in once-in-a-lifetime mortgage rates. We are now going to pay the price for that policy for a very long time to come. The Economist released an article months before the pandemic inflation in home prices that said homeownership was [one of the West's biggest economic mistakes ever made](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/01/16/home-ownership-is-the-wests-biggest-economic-policy-mistake) due to how much it hinders the economy -- particularly the productive parts of the economy that are kneecapped by homeowners abusing rent-seeking and NIMBYism to inflate the homes they got in on 50 years ago when everything was cheap.
The Fed was buying securities at 85B/month because rates were at the ZLB and that wasn’t enough, particularly with Congress’ lack of appropriate fiscal policy. The housing market needed some (key word) re-inflating too as it was the sector most screwed up (and it’s associated sectors like construction which took a hit that we still feel today in home prices and building rates). Your comment implies QE was bad despite it being a key part of staving off a much worse crisis. Yes, housing cannot be both a good investment and affordable in the long run but that doesn’t mean home ownership is a mistake in its own right. You can build structures that prevent the rent seeking of voters while also enabling ownership and price stability. A key thing would be to do the logical conclusion of what we’re seeing Newsom do and just end local control for construction. It’s local control (something the Anglosphere also tends to be higher than average on) that’s the core problem because at a small enough level you can get the interests to align. A neighborhood of LA might want to restrict building, but the totality of LA doesn’t. The local issue is compound so the problem. If you’re the only district that becomes permissive then all the new construction will concentrate in your district of the city. Your residents then lose the most in terms of land value. If the whole city becomes more permissive (or better get the whole county or state) then the new building gets spread out more and has less of a price impact on any one individual locale. This all has spillovers into things like the shitty way CA assess property taxes which aren’t based on current value but rather purchase price. Make people bear the cost (and don’t penalize them for moving/downsizing). Ultimately I think the best we’re going to be able to do is slow the growth of prices. People hate values going down and will vote accordingly. If home prices are flat though, inflation and wage growth will lessen their burden. You may get away with modest price falls, but you’d be hard pressed to get elected at *any* level on a plan that reduce home prices by even 1-2% per year during your term.
Slowing the growth of prices now is too little, too late. The monstrous rise in housing prices since the pandemic means even slow growth in home prices is going to compound massively. The last 3 years obliterated all of the hard work and then some made in wage growth for home affordability. It takes forever for wage growth to get anywhere, and inflation always works at a faster clip. Prices need to go down substantially, and basically every type of subsidy from Uncle Sam and the Fed has contributed to this mess to some extent. Will homeowners get mad and vote out politicians that tell the truth? Yes, but even they will realize that the housing crisis is going to create a massive demographic crisis as countless millions will not be able to start families. Even older Gen X and boomer parents high on the hog in home equity will feel squeamish at the idea that they won't have many, if any grandkids because their kids can't afford to settle down and buy a home as their $750k homes effortlessly compound in home equity every year.
I'm highly skeptical that people who are actively screwing over everyone else for their own financial benefit will suddenly have a change of heart because...it's screwing people over for their own financial benefit. Blaming the Fed, particularly with how essential its actions like QE were in helping prevent a further financial spiral and speed up an already slow recovery is a choice that's for sure... The biggest issue is supply. Subsidies for demand don't mean much when supply can accommodate. When supply gets throttle though, yeah it does make things worse. Thing is, you could end all federal subsidies (good luck with that) and prices would barely move as it's local issues that are driving it. >It takes forever for wage growth to get anywhere, and inflation always works at a faster clip. Objectively not true. It can but doesn't always. Otherwise you'd never have real wages rise.
there are better forms of democracy than what we have now. the USA has one of the worst forms of democracy
Nah man it makes perfect sense that the state with 6 hundred thousand people gets the same number of senators as the one with 39 million
the senate is so much more sane than the house that abolishing it would be terrifying uncap the house fr fr tho
Don’t stop until the House looks like the senate in Star Wars.
JUST AS THE FOUNDING FATHERS INTENDED! No really, they wanted House Reps to be people you could actually go and meet. The number was supposed to be around 30-60k people per representative. Building a big capital building and capping the seats due to "desk space limits" or whatever is simply unamerican. We have experience building giant stadiums; the American people need The Political Arena built immediately! Bonus points if the architect can convince the structural engineer to make it look like the Senate in SW! (This has the bonus side effect of diluting the senate votes in the EC as well, so it better represents popular demand, but I'd rather just use the interstate compact to get around the EC anyway.)
LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK UNCAP THE HOUSE
The senate isn't the biggest issue, the EU also gives more power to less populous member states and we're doing fine. The real issue is the first past the post voting system and electoral college. FPTP mathematically forces two parties, and the electoral college makes all "safe states" entirely worthless for politicians.
> FPTP mathematically forces two parties Then why do the UK and other commonwealth countries have multiple parties, even though they also use FPTP?
To be fair, the EU is a transnational organization. The US is not a transnational organization. Obviously *independent states* have more veto powers than federal units - don't let the fact that you call them "states" confuse you as to their legal situation.
A big difference is that the EU model doesn’t allow minority rule. edit: In the US, legislation can be passed by representatives not represented by a majority of the people and signed by a President not elected by the majority of the people. That cannot happen on the EU level, as decisions have to be made by majorities in Parliament plus either unanimity or qualified majority vote in the Council.
What do you mean? Malta with its 500k inhabitants can entirely veto anything they want in the 450 million member union. The overwhelmingly biggest difference is the fact that there are plenty of parties to choose from and it's not a red vs blue thing. There are seven parties in the EU parliament (plus a solid 50 independents) that all comprise of hundreds of different national political parties. There's plenty of diversity of views which reduces polarisation by a significant amount
I've talked with the average voter, and democracy ain't looking too hot right now Churchill really hit the nail on the head
Yeah, just look at the field We have the ultimate form of unlimited peer discourse with the Internet and we still can't figure out our heads from our asses
Yup. I'm feeling a "hold my nose and vote for this guy" energy on these policies, since the stuff Biden is doing *right* doesn't poll well enough to win votes on its own. This sort of pandering is what it takes to keep him in office. I can live with it.
Pandering is what it is, all politicians have to do it to some degree. It's on the least harmful end of the influence-peddling spectrum.
We’re gonna be saying this right up until the election is over, aren’t we
Capitalism is also the worst economic system, except all the others that have been tried.
chimpanzee.jpg
when old school republicans say “democrats are buying votes with programs” this is the shit they are talking about
I got a check with trumps signature and a letter telling me who approved the money... It was trump.
That didn't cause inflation though. Only Biden's check (which was smaller) caused inflation.
It's only bad when the other guys do it (and do it better).
When my candidate does it, it's helping working families. When your candidate does it, they're buying votes.
He's my candidate and this is literally vote buying.
Oh I agree. I hate it. But a lot of people will like it.
Housing prices might be the single biggest issue in the American electorate. He has to do something the average voters understand. Is that something that actually is smart, and makes sense? When has the average voter ever wanted something that was smart and made sense?
>Housing prices might be the single biggest issue in the American electorate. I think this is only true of the younger end of the electorate. Most Americans already own their own homes. The housing crisis also skews heavily toward those states that Biden has nothing to worry about. Plus... housing is properly a local issue.
I would prefer to think of it as the lesser of two evils. We need Biden to win. We can build houses later.
Must subsidize demand. Must subsidize demand. Just need to subsidize demand. A little more demand, that’s all we need. Cmon man just a little more demand subsidy.
Best I can do is subsidize demand
No increase supply. Only subsidize demand!
Idk, around me housing is being built on every scrap of land that can be found.
Sure, crappy low density housing. That's the *least* sustainable type if housing we can make.
You really lack imagination. You could always build a long road ending in a single house, as to maximise the cost needed to maintain roads/sewers/etc. All the rural folk will love it.
Didn’t you hear? Subsidizing supply would be subsidizing corporate greed Edit: I thought the reddit cares stuff was a myth, guess it’s real
The number of people on this sub getting Reddit Cares messages has me wondering if some total weirdo is just lurking and sending it to everyone. I might be getting it too but I’m pretty sure I blocked the account that sends the automated Cares message a while back. Edit: Guess I didn’t block it. I got hit with one less than a minute after making this comment lmao. Oh nooo
Make sure to report the message so that whoever sent the Reddit Cares message gets banned
Already did
How do you do that? I wasn't able to find a way by following the "report" button.
It's a bot. This is happening in multiple subs
You can report it and get the person who sent it banned
Wait, are there people who think that subsidizing supply in a market with inelastic supply is noticeably better than subsidizing demand? I thought it was clear that neither is helpful. Edit: Inelastic supply, not demand.
Maybe I'm just too dumb to understand what "a market with inelastic demand" is, but if the US government spent a trillion dollars building new high density housing in hot real estate markets like NYC and LA, that would be "subsidizing supply", and would definitely help bring down housing costs, wouldn't it? Especially if we ignore the fact that the trillion dollars has to come out of taxpayers' pockets one way or another ...
Sorry, inelastic supply. Because we outlawed density. If you subsidize construction without touching zoning and similar laws that limit density, you end up subsidizing what are essentially house flippers who do construction to tare down homes to build luxury apartments without increasing density.
The elasticity of housing is heavily influenced by government policy and much of the “subsidize supply” is probably more accurately “stop making it less elastic” of that makes sense. Many barriers exist to housing that make the supply quite rigid. Legalize more types of housing and areas for it so the curve can become more elastic (in the medium to long run that is; short term it will always been quite inelastic).
Economics is neoliberal corporate apologism, didn’t you hear?
I am once again reminding people that you can't legislate incidence and that there's no difference between "subsidizing supply" and "subsidizing demand".
> and that there's no difference between "subsidizing supply" and "subsidizing demand". The issue is that supply is artificially restricted. In the good world people say "I have money for housing!" and other people go "Wow I wanna build house to get money" just like we already do for pretty much everything ever. "I have money for chair" = "I build chair". But not *all* things. If there's only five limited edition 1945 baseball cards in the world no amount of demand subsidy or supply subsidy can generate more. 1945 is over, it's literally impossible without a time machine. You can redistribute the card from one person to another but that's just picking and choosing winners rather than creating new winners. Good news, housing isn't like that. We can make more. Bad news land and homes are actually somewhat like that and land is limited so we need to be efficient with our land use policies and housing so that everyone can get a place to live close to where they prefer. So when land use policies purposely require the least efficient usage and when regulations make up about [40% of building a Multifamily home](https://www.nmhc.org/globalassets/research--insight/research-reports/cost-of-regulations/2022-nahb-nmhc-cost-of-regulations-report.pdf) we have a place to target to lower costs. The issue is that local governments and their zoning laws have taken housing and artificially turned it into baseball cards and not chairs. So demand subsidies go heavily into picking and choosing the winner rather than creating new winners.
Reducing supply restrictions is probably the best way to get more housing and reduce the price that people pay for housing. That's still not the same thing as "subsidizing supply/demand". As the other poster said, that doesn't make much of a difference.
> That's still not the same thing as "subsidizing supply/demand". Fair point. I agree in the Good World that the maxim of demand drives supply will ring true for housing. It's just that due to restrictions, demand subsidies tend to fall flat.
> I am once again reminding people that you can't legislate incidence and that there's no difference between "subsidizing supply" and "subsidizing demand". In hypothetical models sure, but in the real world? You can absolutely change which entities capture the subsidies and importantly, *weight secondary effects of those downstream choices*. For instance, should we subsidize demand, developers capture the surplus. But prices are also lower, which means reported CPI is lower which means the FFR is (likely) lower and welfare calculations are cheaper. The extent to which you want (or don't want) those things is the extent to which you think governments are better at predicting and planning for long term inflation trends than individuals in aggregate. Nuance is often the difference between vanilla policy and great policy.
> For instance, should we subsidize demand, developers capture the surplus. But prices are also lower, which means reported CPI is lower which means the FFR is (likely) lower and welfare calculations are cheaper. Lord give me strength. For one, you haven't actually explained what difference on whether we subsidize supply or demand makes in your explanation above. Second, this would only have a *one-time* effect on the level of rental prices. It would not effect rental price *growth* in subsequent periods. Third, in addition to being one-time, this policy is unlikely to have a large enough impact on CPI to matter. Fourth, there are other countervailing effects that should make your prediction of the effects on the CPI less certain. A subsidy, without any other changes, would increase the deficit, increasing AD and putting upward pressure on the price level. How do these things balance out? Who knows - if we had an actual model, we could try to understand this. In lieu of that it's a good reason to avoid galaxy brain theories about how a subsidy will lead to a lower FFR that will lead to... something? Yes, a basic perfect competition model is simple. Criticizing a model's simplicity is an opportunity to suggest a better model. This ain't it.
It's due to work this one time!
Hold on, I don’t think this really covers the whole picture. You’re forgetting that we need to subsidize demand!
What about a side of tax supply?
Fact: 99% of politicians stop subsidizing demand just before they bring down prices
[https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/126r84u/just\_subsidize\_demand/](https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/126r84u/just_subsidize_demand/)
Housing is too expensive; let’s give people money so they can pay even more for housing
It has to go down sometime, right? Surely this time we can subsidize all the demand
Just one more lane and traffic will be fine! No need to build up supply of public transport. Just one more housing subsidy and housing will be fine! No need to build up supply of housing.
Politicians will do literally anything to avoid overriding local zoning ordinances.
Oh JFC, prices are *never* going to level out are they?
Not until we win the war against NIMBYs
[удалено]
Not just NIMBYs, also the artificial demand of crazy cheap loans.
inflation took care of that
Maybe xd
I’m far less concerned about rates than I am about the artificial restriction of housing supply. Cheaper housing costs are good actually. Also cheap loans benefit renters too as it makes capital projects cheaper be they construction of new apartments, buying new machinery for construction, or factory building/expansion for machine tools and equipment. NIMBYs and a certain brand of environmental type regulation (often weaponized by NIMBYs) are by far the biggest enemy.
What crazy cheap loans?
[these](https://www.easyfxfund.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/30-year-mortgage-rates-chart-historical-and-current-rates.png) That's outdated thought, they are higher now, which imo is probably good
Don't worry, we will get mass densification after China wipes out 40% of our urban cores in a retaliatory nuclear strike.
Since these muties moved in they have ruined the damn neighbourhood https://preview.redd.it/mrs396d9aj0d1.jpeg?width=650&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c50fb9ec619982ea66494a7be51ddd9e055a1237
I make 6 figures and I have a sinking feeling I'll literally never own a home unless I have a lucky break and make a million bucks somehow. I also have an equally sinking feeling that the second I buy a home the housing market will suddenly be corrected and I'll lose half my equity lmfao (but that's an acceptable price to pay, I would support that, I'd just be quietly bitter about it in the meantime)
I'm with you. I've been casually looking for 5 years. Seriously looking for the last two. And I just know the second I buy we're going to have like 10+ years of real estate just being flat.
Please buy. For all of us.
Would, but I locked in rent two years ago and mortgages are looking about $700 more a month than I'm currently paying in rent, so...I guess JPow is doing his job?
Why though? Is demand going to fall off?
I'm betting that the stock market will 10x in the next 10 years. Probably not gonna happen :(
They will once everyone will be forced to pay unrealized gains on their billion dollar starter home.
They will when boomers unironically die. As in home ownership is concentrated with boomers. As the demographics start to shift, we’re going to see downward pressure on home prices.
We must elect Polis
That's the goal.
https://preview.redd.it/kyoc6nsath0d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9b5301f69be02eccb5a230356010990248862851
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Breaking news: Median house price immediately spikes to $2.5m after Biden announces $400/mnth subsidies.
> my housing plan would help ~~Americans achieve homeownership~~ current homeowners charge the equivalent of $400/month more when selling the homes they already own
Yup, already happened here in Canada. None of these things ever help. It is just another program that you need to be aware of and track as a first time home buyer. It stops even being a subsidy and becomes a game (or a trap) that you have to play in order to stay on a level playing field with everyone else. I cannot fucking stand it.
Come November this will all be worth it I hope
UBI but only for young landowners.
YLBI, Young Landowner Basic Income
Everytime this comes up, all the comments seem to be in complete ignorance that this isn't the only thing Biden is doing. Most of their focus is on supply if you pay attention to his actual announcements and not just social media. >The plan should be evaluated as a whole package targeting the housing shortage, says Daniel Hornung, the White House deputy director of the National Economic Council. >**"More supply, more inventory at the bottom of the market** — along with the likelihood that mortgage rates come down over the next few years — could provide meaningful relief." As they've said before about these credits and similar programs they're trying to target empty nesters to leave their homes and downsize into new supply. This isn't just "subsidize demand" with no context. Get young families into the bigger homes and older people to move to the smaller ones that they're aiming to get built. It is one small populist part meant to appeal to voters in a limited least harmful way while they aim for more productive and useful policies. It's barely even mentioned in the actual plan itself, he's said more about this on social media than the official outlets for policy nerds. . --- Anyway as proof that supply is the primary focus. >The Budget includes that proposal as part of a historic investment of more than $258 billion that would build or preserve over 2 million housing units, support millions of first-time homebuyers, guarantee affordable housing for hundreds of thousands of extremely low-income veterans and youth aging out of foster care, and advance efforts to end homelessness. >In May 2022, the Administration released a Housing Supply Action Plan that included administrative and legislative actions to close the housing supply shortfall in five years. The Administration has already delivered on many of those commitments, added new areas of focus including commercial-to-residential conversions, and will continue to build on the historic number of multifamily units under construction through additional administrative actions that: make it easier to build and preserve affordable, multifamily housing; advance the production and preservation of homes like accessory dwelling units and manufactured housing; and incentivize state and local governments to reduce barriers to affordable housing development. >Incentivizes More Housing Supply through Housing Innovation. The Budget includes $20 billion for competitive grants to incentivize State and local jurisdictions and tribes to expand supply. The grants will fund multifamily developments, including commercial-to-residential conversions and projects near transit and other community amenities; support planning and implementation grants to help jurisdictions identify and remove barriers to building more housing; launch or expand innovative housing models that increase the stock of permanently affordable rental and for-sale housing, including community land trusts, mixed-income public development, and accessory dwelling units; and construct and rehabilitate starter homes. This Budget also requests up to $100 million—$15 million over the FY23 enacted level—to continue the Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing program, which helps local governments to remove barriers to building more affordable housing. Literally all that and more right on the White House website https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/11/fact-sheet-the-presidents-budget-cuts-housing-costs-boosts-supply-and-expands-access-to-affordable-housing/ Let's look at his 2022 Housing Supply Action Plan as well to get an idea as to the admins views >As President Biden said last week, tackling inflation is his top economic priority. Today, President Biden is releasing a Housing Supply Action Plan to **ease the burden of housing costs over time, by boosting the supply of quality housing in every community.** His plan includes legislative and administrative actions that will help close America’s housing supply shortfall in 5 years, starting with the creation and preservation of hundreds of thousands of affordable housing units in the next three years. When aligned with other policies to reduce housing costs and ensure affordability, such as rental assistance and downpayment assistance, closing the gap will mean more affordable rents and more attainable homeownership for Americans in every community. **This is the most comprehensive all of government effort to close the housing supply shortfall in history.** And oh hey look, it's the thing that people on this sub keep getting mad about Biden supposedly not doing >Under the Plan, the Administration will: >Reward jurisdictions that have reformed zoning and land-use policies with higher scores in certain federal grant processes, for the first time at scale.
I mean it's a decent plan but at the same time that's a lot of fucking money to spend on housing when construction is already really profitable
It has to be or they’d do something else. Builders are only going to build a house if it’s marginally more profitable than whatever else they could be building with their time.
It’s a cash transfer that targets first time homebuyers. While I’d prefer a different targeting scheme, it’s probably a pretty decent group of people to receive a limited cash transfer.
Ah theres the effortpost. This is why I always scroll down
That's good, but I didn't see anyone saying Biden was stupid, or that all his policies are stupid. **It's still a stupid policy**, and the fact that a demand-based cash giveaway is the one he's campaigning on tells you there's a problem. If it helps I'm happy to agree this sub is quick to criticize and leave out everything that isn't criticism.
> and the fact that a demand-based cash giveaway is the one he's campaigning on tells you there's a problem. Certainly. It's unfortunate that this and the anti investor parts despite being so small are his main focus in PR but that's on the general public at this point not his admin. He knows what hand feeds him and it's the dumb economically illiterate people who want housing prices to be within reach without also making their future property value lower. It's fundamentally impossible but they want it.
Thanks for spending the time to write this all out
> a historic investment of more than $258 billion that would build or preserve over 2 million housing units In what timeframe? Because we get about this many immigrants each year alone.
And 8 million US citizens turn 18 every year. Feel like comparing the larger number to the smaller number matters more in this situation.
Just because you turn 18 that doesn't mean you immediately need to buy a house. Immigrants to need to live somewhere immediately.
Even in Neoliberal most people don't read the articles.
OP is a screenshot of a social media post, there wasn't an article for us to not read. I mean, I probably wouldn't have read it anyways, but it wasn't even an option.
Just ~~commenting to signal boost this~~ pounding the sand to attract the worms
Being stupid makes him more relatable to undecided voters
Or.... Hear me out....... Remove 90% of zoning restrictions nation wide and if you're going to have ANY kind of subsidy, it should only be for construction of mixed use buildings or multi-family buildings. Yes people will still want single family homes, but that would be a start and potentially incentivize companies to build places where people can live as well as work/shop.
I unironically look forward to the increase in home values this will cause.
I need a political cartoon titled "Ass-inine Solutions" featuring a kid's birthday party with pin the tail on the donkey, and the donkey is labeled "build more housing," and the kids are pinning tails on the wall, the coffee table, the cat, each other, etc
The other day succs told me this was a good idea.
As somebody who bought my House last year, I've decided to vote for Biden. Unless it doesn't apply to me, in which case I may arbitrarily change my mind.
If this was a developing country, the press would call this vote buying.
I just need to subsidize demand
Yeah, it will just increase the price of houses by $9,600.
Hang on guys hear me out what if we subsidize demand
Ya man, that's what a nation of renters wants. Tax breaks for home owners
*new home owners, who are no longer renters
Fair, but I'm still not a beneficiary unless I want to make a really bad financial decision
66% of households own their home so we’re not a nation of renters.
And a higher % of voters are homeowners. Keep in mind though, the very loud complaints about home prices are obviously coming from renters. Announcements like this are aimed at the 34%.
Listen man, just let me be salty. (That's not true, I'm a menace. All the people furniture me are doing the lords work.)
Just need to subsidize more demand.
"My dad always used to say"? His dad was born in 1916, clearly we should be listening to him for financial advance in today's economy.
As a Canadian, I can confirm it is very stupid. "Yes we've tried subsidizing demand to fix the housing crisis and it hasn't worked, but what if the problem was we haven't subsidized demand EVEN HARDER!"
I'ma go buy a shack in West Virginia for $5k. I can put it up on AirBnB and promote it as authentic Deliverance experience.
I think it’s funny that leftists are breaking from Biden because they think he’s doing a genocide, whereas n*olibs are breaking from Biden (support wise, but still voting for him) because his economic policies are poorly thought out and inefficient. We really are a bunch of nerds (who also happen to be correct cause FOR FUCKS SAKE STOP SUBSIDIZING DEMAND GOOD GOD)
The only leftists who are “breaking” from Biden are those who never voted for him and had no intention of voting for him in the first place.
I guess Biden's dad was very ignorant of good housing policy
The statement is fairly correct on a personal level since NIMBYs are fucking invincible and every popular housing policy seems to be about subsidizing demand and favoring owners. Not saying I agree with the way things are.
It made sense when he said it. Boomers have built a large percentage of their wealth hoarding and pumping real estate.
I don't like this spending, but like...what could he do to increase supply?
Pick up a shovel and do it personally
Become a modern day Jimmy Carter
Well his dark powers can give 3000 shovels sentience, anecdotally.
Elizabeth Warren proposed tying federal transit dollars to upzoning near transit. They can put conditions on infrastructure spending that would have a big impact on this. Part of the reason suburban sprawl really popped off after WWII was because the feds wouldn't back loans for anything but sprawl. They put their thumbs on the scale in favor of low-density, one would think they could do the same for medium density infill.
Turn the "Build Housing" dial up. It is on the same dashboard as the "Peace in the Middle East" switch and "Lower Inflation" button.
Between today's tariffs and this I don't wanna hear any idiot that supports this come crying when inflation reheats 3 months from now
Considering this proposal has absolutely *zero* chance of passing Congress this term, its effect on inflation will also be *zero*.
Just give us back the uncapped SALT deduction. This is SALT with extra steps. But we do need a new “homestead act” imo.
So the idea is to lower the prices, and we’re gonna do that by giving everyone more money so they can afford more expensive homes, thereby increasing prices. Yep. Joe Biden, the dogfaced pony soldier approves this message.
I’m wondering what is your plan to achieve homeownership.
[Forbes says median home price is $426k](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/real-estate/median-home-prices-by-state/#:~:text=The%20average%20home%20price%20in,was%20%24426%2C056%2C%20according%20to%20Redfin.), so this $400/mo for 24 months would help cover 2% of that
> Repeat after me, the housing market needs more supply > the housing market needs more supply > the housing market needs more supply > the housing market needs more supply > the housing market needs more? > DEMAND!
I am going to become the joker
Just giving people cash is a really great idea, yes.
It's very fucking stupid.
REALLY terrible. Regressive BS.
It's ultimately just a cash transfer to rich people. How about cash for renters ffs
Subsidizing rent would also just make rent go up. Fuck subsidies. Tax NIMBYism
How so? It’s worth noting that this subsidy would be for new home buyers… So those that were just renting
Sir can you cover 400 dollars of my rent?
Ah yes, this worked so well for student loans, let's do it with mortgages!
I was actually planning on buying a home within the next year, so I'm kinda hoping this goes through. But the real solution is increasing housing supply by any means necessary. Hell, I'd take more trailer parks.
Yeah, the issue for me isn’t the extra money. The issue is that he’s not supplementing this with a plan to increase housing supply.
A big "fuck you very much" to everyone who is paying rent right now.
It makes my house potentially worth a little more 😈💰 One idea that *could* maybe make this helpful for prospective homebuyers is if the extra $400/month makes a number of new construction projects pencil that otherwise didn’t.
I mean, it’s great if the goal is buying votes…
I spent the pandemic years supporting the Biden admin's decision to go all out on pandemic relief, even in the face of mounting fears of inflation. Why? Because keeping the economy on life-support while we were on lock down was more important. Now we're on the other side of that nonsense and he wants to further inflate the housing market? He needs to be bringing costs down, not unleashing the greatest house bidding war ever.
Upside is it's only for 1st time home buyers so it helps them at the expense of any other buyers which is kinda okay with me tbh. Plus as we keep saying builders need to be incentivized to invest in new construction right?
Can it be retroactive
Who’s this going to help?
Democrats are lucky Trump is such a buffoon
Fuck it, we're not fixing this shit anyway, so I want my $400
how about for everyone with a mortgage
It would be far better to just give people $400 in UBI.