Do all want affordable homes? No! Some millions of homeowners could think that's not in their best interest.

Every day we read about the need of affordable homes. And the desired promise of it, is exploited by politicians in many ways shapes or forms. 

E.g., recently I read in Financial Times that Zohran Mamdani, in 2020, told a reporter, “What I’ve seen in my work is, it’s not tenant versus homeowner.” The affordability crisis is, rather, “tenant and homeowner versus financial speculator and investment bank portfolio”. Really?

Just ask the approximately 86 million U.S. homeowners, representing a homeownership rate of approximately 65 percent, what they think of their piggy banks turning “affordable”. (November 2024, Donald Trump won with little more that 77 million votes)

2028 I wrote in Washington Post: “Do we want affordable homes or houses as investment assets? There’s no easy answer, because going back to just homes would also cause immense suffering for all those believing they have, with their houses, built up a safety net.”

The challenge that described remains valid. Just imagine a politician during a special interest rally offering a tempting: 

“In the quest for Affordable Homes, I promise to minimize as much as possible the sufferings that could cause to you who already own a home.” To top it up he could add: “I promise to help you leave as much as possible to those you want to inherit you, for those you have built up a mountain, or at least a little hill.” 

And that during that rally, the attendants would hear, over and over again, Peter, Paul and Mary singing “The House Song” and giving it perhaps a new meaning.

I believe that to be able to bridge the so dissimilar and emotional laden interests between house buyers and home owners, in a reasonably amiable way, without too many tears, the best way, the only way, is by fully understanding how we got here. Why that’s not discussed, Ill’ leave to you.

Since the 1990’s regulators decided that banks needed to hold more capital against risky loans to small businesses and entrepreneurs than against “safe” residential mortgages. What had to happen? More financing of houses and less of that which can help create the job incomes people need to afford buying houses. 

If you do not want to take my word for it, read the answer ChatGPT and Grok gave when dialoguing with them on this issue. A Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences should of course have been able to understand that and alerted us. Sadly, truth be told, none of these laurates ever did.

Who’s going to help avoid a class war among house buyers and home owners from degenerating into an undeclared civil war conflict? The US Congress? 

No wonder the attendance to churches is reported to have increased.