FILE – A home under construction marked as “SOLD” at a development in Eagleville, Pa., is shown on Friday, April 28, 2023. The United States is slogging through a housing affordability crisis that was decades in the making. The shortage pours cold water on President Joe Biden’s assurances that the U.S. economy is strong and underscores the degree to which Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, has largely overlooked the issue.
The lack of housing has caused a record number of renters to devote an excessive amount of income to housing, according to a. Not enough homes are for sale or being built, keeping prices elevated. Average mortgage rates have more than doubled and further worsened affordability. Donovan noted that this is an increasingly bipartisan challenge that could bring the political parties together. Expensive housing was once the domain of Democratic areas such as New York City and San Francisco. It’s now moved into Republican states as places such as Boise, Idaho, grapple with higher prices.
Biden, a Democrat, acknowledged the pain many are feeling in his State of the Union address earlier this month and in his budget proposal released on Monday. During the 2018 to 2020 years of Trump’s presidency, the country’s housing shortage surged 52% to 3.8 million units, according to the mortgage company Freddie Mac.
“Even as incomes are going up and the economy is doing well and inflation is coming down, people can’t buy homes,” said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at the brokerage Redfin. “That’s like the biggest problem for Biden because it’s not one that he can solve.” The cumulative costs of evicting poorer renters are “$20,000 to $30,000 a year when you include shelter nights and emergency room visits,” Neumann said. “It’s really overwhelming when you think about the total numbers and these folks are fighting to have a roof over their heads.”