Is there a happy medium between the fact that homeownership is not for everyone, and the fact that homeownership is “an essential element in achieving the American Dream?”
We use archaic terms and imagery–“shackles”–to describe layers and layers of time, money, and red-tape expense that constrain less costly access to homeownership for those intent on making it part of their realized Dream.
These terms and images obscure the fact that it’s people who, for any number of reasons are afraid or resentful about other people’s attainment of an economic foothold “in my backyard,” or not.
Here’s one of the ways that fear or resentment regarding economic and social mobility is expected to look when it comes to housing. Zillow chief economist Svenja Gudell writes:
Over the past year-plus, a persistent dynamic has helped drive home values higher nationwide and in many large markets: Inventory of homes for sale has been falling consistently, as demand from home buyers has steadily grown. It was reasonably expected that this dynamic would ease as builders brought more supply on line, more home sellers came out of the woodwork and/or rising mortgage interest rates and other market factors dampened home buying demand. But as yet, this shift hasn’t happened, nor does it seem likely to any time soon, resulting in a kind of new normal for the time being in the housing market.
This affirms home builders’ collective critical role in the homeownership equation as a core ingredient of the American Dream, which again, does not mean it’s for everyone. What it does mean is that everybody who wants it, and works for it, and reaches a proven ability to pay for it–even slowly over time–should be able to attain it.
Home builders are a big reason National Homeownership Month means anything at all, this year as much as any year since President George W. Bush first proclaimed it to be so in 2002.
But we should not look at policy and regulation as abstract “shackles” locked in by faceless, nameless Washington, D.C.-based “enemies of growth.”
Real people have opposed, attacked, and impeded the attainment of the American Dream among ones who deserve a shot at it and, more importantly, would make the most of it as an investment in the future of local communities. Perhaps they see the American Dream as having a start and end date, or an exclusive set of qualifications for admittance beyond the ability to repay a mortgage.
Home builders are critical to the expansion of supply of homes as a means to help keep prices and values in balance, and attainable in an ongoing way for those who need a bit of help over the first high threshold.
