I have a few assumptions when looking at the messed up real estate markets across the country. The first is that the main reason there has never been a revolution in America is widespread property ownership. The second is that property owners tend to vote for Republicans.
If younger generations are having a hard time getting on the ladder of property ownership, in the long run this can pose problems for the stability of the American state. Therefore, to the extent that there are conflicting interests between the property values of Boomers and younger aspiring homeowners, it’s a place the young should probably prevail.
My third assumption is that YIMBYism is much too simplistic, for a lot of reasons. I see these people as the Borg. They want to ride roughshod over local governance, and doing away with some regulations can end up benefitting some really nasty money launderers and mobbed up developers and construction companies. It’s a vision of localism brought to you by Reddit and The Sims, there’s almost nothing to like about it.
YIMBYism is shaped by its presence in local markets where there’s a strong case to be made that there are housing shortages—namely, New York, San Francisco, Salt Lake City and a handful of places in the South. It’s not a movement that suits the vast majority of housing markets in the country. It’s also too simplistic in that it assumes the only way to bring prices down is to build more. I suppose it’s possible to create shortages by continuing to encourage high levels of immigration.
The last big attempt by a Republican to increase homeownership was under George W. Bush, and it was done by reducing lending standards, which helped inflate the housing bubble and only increased the homeownership rate by a few percent. This is both unwise in concept and a demonstrable failure.
In this moment it seems like the approach to reduce prices is to deal with supply constraints that arise from foreign ownership, AirBNB, and owners that possess dozens to hundreds—and even in some cases thousands—of units in a given area. These enormous single-owner tracts should be illegal.
The number one barrier to buying a home for most people is the down payment, and the trend of younger people making it with a gift from their families continues to rise. There are down payment assistance programs in many states and cities, but something has to be done about the supply problem, too.
There is an important distinction to be made between a rentier economy and a capitalist one. In the Trump era a great deal of his support came from big developers. The danger in this is that Republicans become more like Democrats—a party of landlords and peasants—instead of the old mantra of free men, free soil, and free labor. Taking cues from con artists like Grant Cardone is very far out of the question.