Biden administration lowers housing costs

Here are a couple of ideas from the Biden administration in their efforts to lower housing costs for American families.

Tuesday, March 19, 2024 – NBC News covered this event where President Biden offered ideas. Among them, he suggested that in order to make homes more affordable, homebuyers should negotiate a lower commission with their realtor. THIS is the administration’s brilliant idea, to have realtors charge less. He said, “On a typical home purchase, that alone can save folks an average of $10,000.” So, if that’s an average reduction in commission, how much is left for realtors then? He followed that with, “I’m calling on realtors to follow through on lowering the commissions to protect homebuyers.”

Well, I’m not a realtor, but if you are, I hope you understand how important this is. President Biden is calling on you. We’re all depending on you to “protect homebuyers.” Thank you for your cooperation.

Thursday, April 4, 2024 – On her nationwide Economic Opportunity Tour, Vice President Harris was asked specifically about rising interest rates and “what steps are being taken to lower the burden of housing costs?” She started her response by saying that as a parent and homeowner, “if you have some equity in your home, you can say to your child, don’t take out the loan. I’ll take out some of the equity to help you pay for tuition, so that you don’t graduate with extraordinary student loan debt and so that when you graduate you can do your dream job and not worry about those hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt.”

I know, I know, this is too easy, but I’ll spell it out anyway. First, her response has nothing to do with rising interest rates which is what the questioner asked. Or, maybe she knows something that I don’t, that if parents started buying houses for their kids, interest rates would go down. Hmm. Second, she makes it sound easy, just “take equity out of your home.” What she’s really telling home buyers is, ‘if you can’t afford a house, then don’t take out a loan; just have your parents take out the loan instead, that way you don’t have to worry about the debt.’ In other words, someone is still taking out a loan, she just wants your parents to do it instead. How does that help with the increase in the cost of housing?

These, my neighbors, are the ideas of the Biden/Harris administration. If you are struggling with the costs of buying a home, just get someone else to pay for it, like maybe your parents or your realtor.

I can’t end without drawing a parallel here. If you’re struggling to pay for college, wait, never mind, that’s an article for another day.