in 2024 Election, California, Kamala Harris
“Currently more boomers are partly responsible for creating more households, putting pressure on housing demand,” claims Jonathan Millar, director and senior US economist at Barclays Investment Bank. In similar style, CNN’s Anna Bahney explains that “fewer older homeowners selling is part of what is keeping the inventory of homes historically lowand pushing prices ever higher in markets across the US.” Those born between 1946 and 1964 might not think so.
As Steve explained back in the 1990s, the basic dynamic is BANANA – Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything. In particular, build no low-cost detached housing like the units purchased by the boomers’ parents in the 1950s. That would lead to “sprawl” and require more driving, which contributes to global warming, and so forth. Also on to this is Edward Ring of the California Policy Center, in a piece headlined “Kamala Harris’s War on Housing.”
The biggest factor driving home prices up is the fact that we aren’t building enough of them, and the ones that are getting built cost far more than they should because of excessive building codes and permit fees. California’s regulatory process just to get approval to build a subdivision is enough to deter investors, and then the “impact fees” and other permit costs can add over $100,000 to the price of a home. Thanks to this government abuse of the housing industry, the median price of a home in California is now more than $900,000. With a 6.35 percent mortgage interest rate, the monthly payment is $5,600. Because of these stifling regulations and punitive fees, even if demand drops, home prices will continue to rise.
Harris’s record as Attorney General in California, a post she held from 2011 through 2017, consistently favored environmentalist extremism, higher taxes, and more regulations that not only attacked home builders but also every business providing construction materials.
Kamala Harris owns this debacle. California has institutionalized environmentalist extremism, along with every other big government expansionist policy imaginable. The result has made it impossible for private housing developers to profitably build homes people can afford. Harris’s answer isn’t deregulation, it’s the failed policies of rent control and tax-subsidized “affordable housing.”
So the tendency of boomers to stay in their homes, a wise move on their part, has nothing to do housing shortages or rising prices. It’s all about failed government policies, and as Ring says:
This is what Kamala Harris offers the American people who just want to be able to afford a roof over their heads. It is a sham.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/09/going-bananas-on-boomers.php
No comments:
Post a Comment