McCaughey: Playing politics with housing affordability

Homeowners vote red Renters vote blue Will President Donald Trump s -year mortgage make a red voter out of you That is what the president hoped on Saturday when he posted the idea of stretching out the customary -year repayment terms for home mortgages to years Turns out that idea is smoke and mirrors But at least Trump is recognizing that home affordability is a real situation not fake news Affordability is the campaign pledge that produced big wins on electoral process day and the majority of the winners were Democrats Affording a home is increasingly out of reach The median age of the first-time homebuyer just hit years old according to the National Association of Realtors A great number of women are worried about hitting the brick wall of no longer being able to bear children and they still can t afford a starter home In the median age of someone buying their first home was but in the last limited years it s become the impossible dream for people even in their s The implications are huge not only for starting a family but also for voting Renters favor Democrats by almost two to one according to records from the American National Ballot Studies Homeowners are twice as likely as renters to identify as strongly Republican reports Aziz Sunderji an economist who analyzed several decades of this statistics Starting in the s renters were slightly more inclined to vote Democratic than Republican but in the last years they have swung sharply leftward Making homeownership accomplishable is not only good agenda For Republicans it s smart politics In New York City people in their s who are earning good money as much as or more according to economics reporter John Carney cannot make the leap to homeownership In the mayoral referendum strong encouragement for democratic socialist mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani came from Brooklyn neighborhoods inhabited by downwardly mobile professionals who are settling for cramped rental apartments and roommates They have no hope of buying a home Carney reports Scalded by the voting results across the nation last week Trump floated the idea of a -year mortgage on Truth Social with side-by-side pictures of himself and Franklin Delano Roosevelt who devised the -year mortgage after the Depression to relieve homeowners The -year mortgage is a nonstarter because it s prohibited by Dodd-Frank among other reasons But there are realistic policies to help first-time buyers get into the area Lowering mortgage rates will help Numerous current homeowners especially the elderly who would like to downsize are locked into their current homes because they re financed at low rates If they sell and buy a new property they ll be stuck with higher interest rates So they re waiting keeping urgently needed inventory off the territory Trump has been all over Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to lower interest rates He s already done so twice in September and October But long term this is a trouble of supply and demand To increase the supply of new homes for sale builders need to feel confident buyers will be able to pay the price At the end of October builder confidence was out of according to the National Association of Home Builders What will boost their confidence Job expansion and consumer confidence With the ruling body shutdown ending job realm evidence will soon be available again Builders will be watching Meanwhile politicians will have their eyes on the polls Behind the poll numbers is widespread discontent that the American dream of homeownership is far out of reach Republicans hoping to make gains in next year s midterm elections better pay attention Meanwhile Democrats know where their votes are renters In several states Democrats are pushing towns with mostly single-family housing to build apartment buildings including units to be rented to low-income families Trump identifies this as the Democrats war on the suburbs In Connecticut leftists aligned with Democratic Gov Ned Lamont are ramming through a bill this week that mandates how much affordable rental housing every region of the state will build Forcing small Connecticut towns like Easton or Wilton to build apartment buildings and accommodate a large influx of renters will push up property taxes as the towns have to build sewer lines bus lines and more schools The higher property taxes go the further out of reach buying a single-family home is especially to first-time homebuyers But Democrats are turning a deaf ear to these objections They know the fundamental truth The more renters move into a red town the more likely that town is to flip blue Betsy McCaughey is a former Lt Governor of New York State and Chairman Founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths at www hospitalinfection org Follow her on Twitter Betsy McCaughey