AMAC Exclusive – By Andrew Shirley
![Home-Sold-Cancelled Portrait of happy couple holding house keys standing near sold signboard with cancel sign in red](https://static-asset.amac.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/06093158/Home-Sold-Cancelled.jpg)
Despite President Joe Biden’s proclamation that “Bidenomics is just another way of saying “the American Dream,” the numbers show that one critical part of that dream for millions of families – owning a home – is now more out of reach than at any time in history.
According to a report released earlier this year from real estate and property research firm ATTOM, “median-priced single-family homes and condos are less affordable in the third quarter of 2023 compared to historical averages in 99 percent of counties around the nation with enough data to analyze.” On average according to ATTOM’s data, new homeowners are now required to spend about 35 percent of their monthly income on a mortgage and other expenses related to owning a home – a number considered unaffordable by accepted lending standards, which call for that figure to be closer to 28 percent.
These increases are due in large part to a dramatic spike in interest rates under Joe Biden as a result of several trillion-dollar spending packages that have sent inflation soaring. For the week beginning December 4, the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage was 7.66 percent – more than 2.5 times the 2.77 percent interest rates when Biden took office.
In hard numbers, that means a family looking to buy a $400,000 single-family home (which is virtually impossible to find in many areas) can expect to pay about $1,000 more per month on their mortgage than just two years ago. From September of last year to September of this year alone, the median mortgage payment required for a single-family home increased by more than 50 percent nationwide.
In addition to interest rates reaching historic highs, housing prices have also shot up since Biden took office. In the second quarter of 2023, the median home price in the United States was $416,000 – a more than 25 percent increase from the end of 2020.
While people looking to become first-time homebuyers have been especially impacted by these soaring costs, Americans looking to buy another home have also found themselves in a tough spot. Families who have had more children and are looking for extra bedrooms or want to care for an ailing parent simply can’t afford to trade the three percent interest rates they locked in when Trump was in office for the 7.5+ percent rates available today.
The Biden administration and their allies in the media have been quick to blame rising housing costs on lingering supply chain issues and a supply crunch brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. But Biden has also reversed many of former President Donald Trump’s regulatory reforms which led building costs to decrease, along with implementing new regulations forcing costs higher still.
Earlier this year, for instance, Biden’s Department of Energy released new “green” building codes that experts say will force builders to spend significantly more to comply with. Since January of 2021, overall construction costs for both residential and commercial buildings have increased by 29 percent.
The net result of all of these developments is that fewer Americans can afford a home at all, and those that can are having to make greater sacrifices to achieve their homeownership dreams.
One trend that has become particularly popular especially among young people is known as “househacking,” where homeowners rent out a portion of their home to afford payments. According to a new report from real estate marketing giant Zillow, more than half of Millennial and Gen-Z buyers “view the opportunity to rent out a portion of their home for rental income as ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ important” when purchasing a home.
While househacking is a creative way to make ends meet, it could also have other negative downstream effects. For example, it’s easy to see why young people who need to rent out part of their home would be less inclined to get married and start a family.
For prospective homebuyers, there aren’t many promising signs that relief is coming anytime soon, either. Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman warned in an interview on Fox Business that it seems “very unlikely” that interest rates will ease by the end of 2023.
As Kelman highlighted, the real danger may be that “so many people have stopped believing in the American dream.”
“One in five Millennials believe they will never own a home,” Kelman continued. “And if you don’t have that conviction that you’re going to get your piece, it’s really hard to invest in the long term. It’s really hard to believe that society is going to work out for you.”
This may be the true tragedy of the White House’s “Bidenomics” farce – not just that it’s making housing (and everything else) more unaffordable for the American people, but that it’s destroying the hope of millions that they will have an opportunity to achieve the American Dream at all.
Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.
Why would anyone vote Democrat anymore?
What the Democrats in the Senate are proposing, in terms of further increasing capital requirement for the banks and removing more money from being able to be used productively in the economy, will do more to push home ownership out of the reach of younger buyers than anything else Biden and his merry band of Marxists have done to date. No one is seriously discussing this move by the Senate, because the Democrats just want to sneak this one in under the radar and most MSM outlets are too economically illiterate to understand the ramifications of what the Senate Democrats are proposing.
In general, most Democrat policies are highly regressive in terms of economic growth and personal home ownership. Yet there is enough of an economically illiterate population out there that continues to fall for the siren song of Democrats time after time. Ignorance is NOT an attribute that should be celebrated or encouraged, yet the Democrat Party has spent decades promoting it in multiple generations of Americans.
Bidenomics is the equivalency of being kicked in the balls and calling it “love taps”. And judging by the secreted payouts via Hunters shell LLCs, the only one making bank on “Bidenomics” is BIDEN.
The article should point out how much additional you would pay in interest over the life of a 30 year loan at 7.7% interest versus 2.5%. Good luck Gen Z, keep voting democratic…
No kidding, my Granddaughter had to sell her home after Biden destroyed the RV industry. WHO could afford the gas in the beginning, or now EV Mandates. No family camping anymore.
I’m getting my house ready to sell so I can take the money out of it to live on because inflation and a sick granddaughter that I’m caring for have broken the bank. I’m retired and Joe and Democrats have made this very difficult!!!! I had plenty of money for myself and then Joe and Democrats took over and ruined everything!!! I will never. One for a Democrat – ever!!!
Let’s not forget that Dictator Beijing biden is quietly planning on Destroying 4 Hydroelectric Power Plants in the Pacific Northwest adding to his intentional destruction of the American Dream. He has NOTHING to replace the ENERGY LOSS except the FANTASY WORLD in his demented mind and following obama’s orders.
As the old saying goes, ‘Where’s the BEEF? Well, Where’s the ENERGY?
Schiff-the-bed pedo pete is the absolute biggest EXISTENTIAL threat to the Republic ever! In fact, he is so corrupt and evil, do you shower with your children and grandchildren, that his remains should be treated like hazardous waste!
MAGA MAGA MAGA
Except for Reagan and Trump. Tump wouldn’t take a dime of salary…
Excellent article.
Wrong! NOT Reagan and NOT Trump!
As I remember it, young people insisted Joe Biden HAD to win. So he did, at all costs. The election ripped the country to shreds, along with CovidMania.
The sense of it’s going to go “back to normal” isn’t even on my mind these days. I live in California. It’s not only gone, but it has become dystopian and gets worst month after month.
I don’t understand why more focus is not put on the VRBO/AirBnB industry that is robbing soooo many people of the opportunity to rent or buy a home. Obviously, this really squeezes the people who can only afford to rent. Hate to say it but something needs to be done about this industry.
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They regard all of this as a feature, not a bug. After all, “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy”, right?
However, there is one possible fix. Many years ago I went to a workshop on equity sharing. The concept in one sentence is that you own part of the house and an investor owns the rest (the shares to be negotiated). You pay a mortgage on your share to the extent that you finance it, and then pay a prorated rent to the investor. Not quite homeownership, but perhaps better than renting only.
I wonder if this will take off, as it didn’t back then.
There is an answer and solution in the American Family Hoestead Act (AFHA) detailed at adlervonpfingsten.net.
Trump increased the national debt by $8.18 trillion dollars yet you give all the credit of government spending to biden. Not great reporting. And then blaming interest rates on biden even though that is run by a republican nominated head. Then in the same vain you bash biden for rising house prices. sorry folks, can’t have your cake and eat it too, plenty of blame go around, stop being so one-sided.