Comment by tptacek
2 days ago
Right. There are good financial reasons to own a home even if you don't think it's going to be a great investment, just as there are very good reasons not to own a home even if you have the means. It's the absolute, which is the premise of this policy proposal, that's the problem.
And home ownership rates are well within the normal range for the US post war regime! So this is a policy proposal that will likely decrease affordability to fix a problem that doesn’t exist.
Homeownership rates are only ~flat in aggregate because the population is aging and older people are more likely to own their homes. The homeownership rates of Americans aged <35, 35-44, and 45-54 are down ~10% since 1982 and continuing to decrease. https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/charts/fig07.pdf
You just told a story about how we need to build more housing. Kasey and I agree with you about that.
The point is that there isn't a distortionary corporate investment force preventing young people from doing that; what there are is zoning and permitting rules locking every desirable location into stasis.