Generation Z and younger millennials have the misfortune of being ready to buy a home amid a prohibitively expensive housing market.
As the youngest generation of adults looks to buy their first home, they&#8217;re finding it&#8217;s often cheaper to just keep renting than to invest in a mortgage right now.
Some are waiting out the unwelcoming housing market with a seemingly endless cycle of rent payments, but some are biting the bullet and purchasing now.
&#8220;We bought so our money wouldn&#8217;t go to someone else&#8217;s mortgage,&#8221; a Gen Z homeowner and new mother of a baby boy in Virginia told The Daily Wire.
She and her husband wanted to own land, she said. They plan on putting a few extra thousand dollars toward the principal of their mortgage every year, and they also invested in a larger down payment to get a lower fixed interest rate.
&#8220;There are ways to manipulate the system, but again, you usually need some money up front to do so,&#8221; she said.
She added that there is &#8220;a lot of ignorance&#8221; among young home buyers.
&#8220;Every young homeowner I have spoken to looks like a deer in the headlights when I mention how crazy it is that your interest rate can end up costing you at least double the cost of the house across 30 years,&#8221; she said. &#8220;And most people don&#8217;t realize they are paying mostly interest during the early mortgage years and the bulk of the principal later on. Works great for the loaners.&#8221;
Despite the challenges, there have been big upsides to owning a home, she said.
&#8220;Homeownership has made us feel unrestricted in our homemaking and privacy,&#8221; the mom said.
A Gen Z man who is getting married this summer in the Washington, D.C., area said he is planning to wait a year or two before buying a house. His fiancée, a younger millennial already owns a condo, and they plan to hang onto that property as the value goes up, although they hope to move into a second home once they have their first child.
&#8220;A medium to large-sized house is pretty much guaranteed to be a million bucks,&#8221; he told The Daily Wire. &#8220;The &#8216;350k or lower&#8217; dream is kind of out the window &#8230; After a quick glance at the market a couple months ago, it looks like the expectation is 700k or more, and that&#8217;s before all that yucky interest.&#8221;
Home prices <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/04/housing-affordability-crisis-states-00150463#:~:text=Income%20Housing%20Coalition.-,Home%20prices%20are%20up%2047%20percent%20since%20January%202020%2C%20and,and%20fewer%20people%20over%20time." target="_blank" rel="noopener">are up</a> 47% since the beginning of 2020, while rent is up more than 20%. Homelessness has spiked as well, rising 12% in 2022, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/04/housing-affordability-crisis-states-00150463#:~:text=Income%20Housing%20Coalition.-,Home%20prices%20are%20up%2047%20percent%20since%20January%202020%2C%20and,and%20fewer%20people%20over%20time." target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Renting a two-bedroom residence is now actually cheaper than buying that property for about 89% of Americans, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20231128140139/https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/11/28/is-it-cheaper-to-rent-or-buy-property" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to a November analysis by The Economist.
Back in 2020, that was true for only 16% of Americans.
Meanwhile, the housing crash that many potential home buyers <a href="https://www.inman.com/2023/11/28/35-of-americans-hope-the-housing-market-will-crash-in-2024/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hoped</a> for does not look likely to happen. In November, nearly half of Americans, 44% said they thought the housing market could crash in the next year, according to a LendingTree consumer survey. Economists say they do not expect a housing crash either this year or even in 2025.
In fact, house prices are expected to keep rising as much as 4.1% this year, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/housing-market-predictions-2024" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Mortgage prices are expected to dip but not by much, and rent prices will likely remain about the same due to a glut of newly built apartment buildings with low demand.
Nevertheless, the tough market has not stopped millennials and even some Gen Z-ers from buying homes, perhaps simply because they are fed up with waiting for the market to turn in their favor.
About 38% of all home buyers were millennials last year, <a href="https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics/research-reports/home-buyer-and-seller-generational-trends" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to a report from the National Association of Realtors, up from 28% in the previous year. Among younger millennials ages 25 to 33, 75% were buying a home for the first time.
The younger Gen Z buyers ages 18 to 24 made up only 3% of home buyers last year, showcasing both the difficulty of breaking into the housing market at a young age as well as the tendency of today&#8217;s young adults to wait before tying themselves down to one property.
Baby Boomers, the wealthiest generation is also contributing to the housing shortage by staying put in their current homes, reluctant to lose the lower mortgage rates they locked in during less expensive years. Previously, older generations would typically move into smaller homes as they aged, freeing up inventory for younger families, but nearly 40% of Boomers have lived in their home for at least 20 years, <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/blame-baby-boomers-housing-shortage-redfin-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to Redfin.
This shortage is causing any property that does go on the market to sell quickly at very high prices, often above the asking price.
Despite the daunting circumstances, some younger buyers remain optimistic, although they have adjusted their expectations.
The engaged Gen Z-er said he remains hopeful that he and his fiancée will find something they both love.
&#8220;I basically just want a three-bedroom house with a large backyard and some quiet. It exists, but it&#8217;s just a lot more than I thought it was,&#8221; he said. &#8220;My plan is to put a really big down payment on whatever we get.&#8221;

Home for sale with real estate sign

Gen Z, Young Millennials Debate Endless Rent Or Sky-High Mortgages

Economy

Gen Z

Generation Z

Housing

Inflation

Millennials

Readers Pass

One of the most important ideas in the Bill of Rights is that your private property belongs to you.
It wasn&#8217;t exactly a novel concept, but just in case there was any doubt, the Bill of Rights spelled it out: No one can seize your property without due process. And if you take a look at the major court cases in this area over the years, you&#8217;ll find that you have the strongest privacy interests in your home, which makes sense. There are all kinds of exceptions that police can use to search your car, or your locker at work, for example. But for your home, there aren&#8217;t many exceptions. Your home is your castle, as the saying goes. That&#8217;s been true since the common law was created. 
But it&#8217;s not true anymore. It&#8217;s not even remotely true, in fact. 
It turns out that, when you flood the United States with a limitless supply of illegal migrants, while at the same time shipping millions of jobs overseas, then housing becomes a very scarce commodity. Squatters, mostly out of desperation, pop up in every home they can find — even homes that haven&#8217;t been abandoned. And then, when homeowners try to enforce their rights, and kick these criminals out of the property they paid for, they&#8217;re finding out that the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution has effectively been suspended. 
As we discussed briefly yesterday, squatters — home invaders — now have more rights than homeowners. The government will assist them in seizing your property. The police, universally, will take the side of the criminal home invader, and kick the homeowner to the curb. Then, nonprofits and law firms rush in to represent the squatter in legal proceedings, should they become necessary. And then, somehow, courts will often still rule in favor of the squatter. 
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1329-squatters-can-now-come-in-and-steal-your-home-with-no-consequences-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h4>
We don&#8217;t have to speculate about any of this. It&#8217;s all well-documented at this point. No reasonable person can dispute it. I&#8217;ll start with an example that&#8217;s gotten a lot of attention recently. 
Watch as a 47-year-old woman in Queens, New York, is dragged away from her own home — in handcuffs — because someone claims to have a lease for her property. This guy can&#8217;t show the lease to anyone, including the police and the media. But because he claims he&#8217;s been living there for around a month, they arrest the woman:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="001 New York" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VjB_yF4CJPE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&#8220;Unlawful eviction&#8221; is what they call it when you call the police because there&#8217;s a home invader in your home. That&#8217;s what you get if you&#8217;re not willing to wait two years (or more) for New York&#8217;s completely overloaded housing court to review your case. And by the way, even once New York&#8217;s housing court does review the case, there&#8217;s no guarantee they&#8217;ll side with the homeowner. This is a city that has outlawed the right of self-defense, after all. Once that&#8217;s gone, good luck getting them to enforce any of your other rights.
This is the norm in Left-wing jurisdictions now. It&#8217;s not just that the police don&#8217;t care about squatters with zero documentation whatsoever. It&#8217;s also the fact that the courts don&#8217;t enforce the law, even when you bring flagrant crimes like this to their attention. In Washington state, a judge just <a href="https://thepostmillennial.com/squatter-granted-restraining-order-against-landlord-by-washington-state-judge" target="_blank" rel="noopener">granted</a> a restraining order against a landlord whose tenant hasn&#8217;t been paying rent for years. The landlord organized a protest to bring attention to the situation, and the judge shut it down. This is a tenant who&#8217;s apparently purchased two cars while refusing to pay rent. And in Washington state, the courts side with him.
But this is not just a problem in New York City and Washington State. It&#8217;s happening all over the United States. 
Consider this recent episode in Atlanta, for example. This is from just four months ago. A woman listed her home for sale — not for rent. Then complete strangers moved in and changed the locks. In response, the police did absolutely nothing. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="002 Atlanta" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QTgLMnkTpaA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
It&#8217;s beyond parody. So the police do eventually show up. But it&#8217;s not to evict the home invaders who are stealing this home. It&#8217;s because they have their own &#8220;parallel investigation&#8221; for some other crimes that one of the squatters — a sex offender — committed in the past. So the cops take one man away in custody. But they allow the other squatter to stay on the property. The cops say the homeowner can ask for her to leave, but &#8220;it might not pan out.&#8221; That&#8217;s what law enforcement means now. You can ask people to stop breaking the law, but it might not pan out.
It needs to be said that these are not close cases. It&#8217;s true that, if it&#8217;s a confusing situation — say, a tenant appears to have legitimate lease documentation — then it&#8217;s probably best that the cops don&#8217;t arrest the tenant. But these are not difficult situations like that. When sex offenders start living in your house, without any valid documentation, the police should remove them. There shouldn&#8217;t be any question about it.
But apparently that isn&#8217;t happening anywhere. A similar scene played out seven months ago in Chicago. This time, a homeowner tries to rent out the property, and squatters show up. But once again, the police don&#8217;t do anything:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="003 Chicago" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TmQjTkOXTQM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I could spend all day, going from city to city, showing you footage like this. There&#8217;s footage from rural jurisdictions as well that I could show you. It&#8217;s happening all over. These kinds of home invasions are so common that one handyman has opened up a business advising homeowners how to regain access to their own homes, when squatters show up. Basically the idea is that you need to generate your own lease, so that you can show it to the police officers, who are now trained to respect your squatter&#8217;s rights over your rights in your own home. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="004 Handyman" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/alhkZ1MZqkw?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
It&#8217;s hard to think of a more humiliating exercise than this. You own a property, and to access it, and to get the police to enforce the law, you need to draw up some fake lease for them. And this idea actually works, by the way. We know that because several years ago, the journalist Charlie LeDuff tried it in Michigan. He out-squatted the squatters. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="005 9 years ago" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/85AgkLcc094?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&#8220;Are you stealing power?&#8221; Charlie asks. &#8220;I&#8217;m blessed,&#8221; responds the squatter. At least the woman has a sense of humor.
What&#8217;s funny is that, in this situation, unlike all the other ones, the police actually do take the original squatter to jail. This is the only time they&#8217;ll take action to protect your property. You have to hire a new squatter to kick out the old one. I guess the idea is that the most recent squatter gets dibbs. 
This is a mockery of the idea of private property rights, obviously, and there&#8217;s a reason it&#8217;s happening. It&#8217;s the same reason you see so much mockery of religion. It&#8217;s the same reason BLM goes after the family unit. It&#8217;s why the corporate media pushes transgenderism. Private property rights — like religion and the family unit — is a bulwark against total state control of our lives. As long as we have private property, the state can&#8217;t control us — at least not as easily. 
Without private property, we&#8217;re just renters. And renters can be evicted at will. You&#8217;ll own nothing and be happy.
The Biden administration has done everything it can to normalize the destruction of private property rights. The administration fought to extend the COVID-era eviction moratorium as long as they could — long past the time that there was any plausible argument that ending evictions would somehow &#8220;stop the spread.&#8221; That led, effectively, to the nationalization of private property in this country. Landlords lost the right to evict squatters paying no rent, even when they owned the property outright. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="006 Burbank CA" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/md9FRcSgHBg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The anchor says it&#8217;s a &#8220;loophole.&#8221; But it&#8217;s the opposite of a loophole, the policy was working as intended. The eviction moratorium had nothing to do with a virus. It was intended to do something that&#8217;s never happened in this country since the Civil War, which is the wide-scale suspension of private property rights.
Once you pull off something as unconstitutional as seizing people&#8217;s homes in a time of &#8220;emergency&#8221; (as the Biden administration defined it), then it becomes much easier to seize people&#8217;s homes at any point in the future. And that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re seeing now.
That means more homes for the millions of illegal aliens who are entering this country.
It means more humiliation and destruction for American citizens.
And it means we&#8217;re getting closer to some homeowner somewhere snapping and deciding to take back his property, by force. At this point, you have to imagine that&#8217;s exactly what the people running this country want to happen.

House For Sale

Squatters Can Now Come In And Steal Your Home With No Consequences

Atlanta

Chicago

Home invasion

Landlord

Matt Walsh

New York City

Police

Property Rights

Austin&#8217;s once hot housing market is in sharp decline with landlords reportedly offering tenants perks like weeks of free rent to entice them to stay.
Home prices and apartment rents in Austin have seen a steeper drop recently than any other place in the country as the city sees slower jobs and population growth, The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/economy/housing/once-americas-hottest-housing-market-austin-is-running-in-reverse-94226027?mod=hp_trending_now_article_pos1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
Several years ago, the city saw a glut of new apartment buildings get built while Austin&#8217;s economy grew at close to double the national rate, turning it into the country&#8217;s 10th-largest city, the paper reported.
Companies like Tesla and Oracle established offices in Austin, attracted by lower taxes and fewer regulations. This caused a rush of remote tech workers, who brought their six-figure salaries with them.
From 2020 to the spring of 2022, Austin&#8217;s housing prices spiked over 60%.
Now however, Austin&#8217;s population boom is waning, and prices are dropping.
Housing prices in the city have fallen more than 11% since their peak two years ago, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/economy/housing/once-americas-hottest-housing-market-austin-is-running-in-reverse-94226027?mod=hp_trending_now_article_pos1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the Freddie Mac House Price Index. The average value of a home in Austin is now $533,719, <a href="https://www.zillow.com/home-values/10221/austin-tx/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to Zillow.
Rents are also down nearly 7% over the last year, <a href="https://www.apartmentlist.com/rent-report/tx/austin" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to Apartment List. The median rent in Austin is currently $1,472.
Meanwhile, offices are starting to empty out.
Google has not moved in hundreds of workers who were supposed to work out of a 35-story building built about two years ago.
Several companies have already moved out of Austin.
In 2021, Elon Musk dramatically moved Tesla&#8217;s headquarters to Austin. Last year in February, Musk announced that the electric car company would be moving back to California in a joint press conference with California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Another tech company, Cart, announced in November that it was moving its headquarters back to Houston after moving to Austin in 2021.
Venture funding in Austin has plummeted as well. In the first three quarters of 2023, venture funding was down 46% to $2.9 billion compared to the $5.3 billion Austin saw during the first three quarters of 2021, <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/07/is-the-texas-boom-town-of-austin-losing-its-luster/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to TechCrunch.
Meanwhile, nationally, home prices are still rising. Prices were up 4.2% year over year as of February, according to Zillow.
In many areas, concerns are still mount about soaring house prices, rents, and mortgage rates, which have driven home ownership out of reach for many families.
Prices for everyday items such as groceries also remain high due to spiking inflation over the last several years, compounding the troubles for families who may be struggling to pay their rent or mortgage.

Union Pacific Railroad Post Flat Quarterly Earnings, Signaling Slowness And Inflationary Impacts On Economy

Landlords Offering Free Rent In Austin As Once Hot Housing Market Rapidly Cools

Austin

Texas

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/housing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Home foreclosures</a> are soaring across the nation, especially in certain states, new data shows.
Tens of thousands of houses were facing foreclosure as of last month, according to a <a href="https://www.attomdata.com/news/market-trends/foreclosures/u-s-foreclosure-activity-continues-to-see-an-annual-increase/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from real estate data provider ATTOM.
A total of 32,938 properties across the country had foreclosure filings in February, up 8% over a year ago, although that number was down 1% from January, the report found.
Foreclosure filings can consist of default notices, scheduled auctions, or bank repossessions.
Across the country, there was one foreclosure filing for every 4,279 housing units last month.
Some states fared better than others. South Carolina had the highest foreclosure rate with one in every 2,248 housing units. Delaware was next, followed by Florida, Ohio, and Connecticut.
“The annual uptick in U.S. foreclosure activity hints at shifting dynamics within the housing market,” said Rob Barber, CEO at ATTOM.
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-9096" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://onelink.to/dwapp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1700760801843000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2PQrVSrJfhxNb4LcARqniG">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
“These trends could signify evolving financial landscapes for homeowners, prompting adjustments in market strategies and lending practices,” Barber said.
Columbia, South Carolina, was the major metropolitan area with the highest foreclosure rate.
Orlando had the highest foreclosure rate for cities with a population greater than a million, followed by Cleveland, Riverside, Philadelphia, and Miami.
Overall, lenders started the foreclosure process for 22,575 properties in February, up 4% from January and 11% from a year ago.
Florida saw the most foreclosure starts with more than 2,700, followed by California, Texas, New York, and Ohio.
The cities that saw the most foreclosure starts were New York City, Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami.
Completed foreclosures also rose in several states.
South Carolina again topped the list with completed foreclosures up 51% compared to a year ago. Missouri was next with completed foreclosures up 50%, then Pennsylvania at 46%. Texas saw a 7% jump, and Indiana saw a nearly 1% increase over last year.
Out of major metropolitan areas, Chicago saw the most completed foreclosures, a total of 207. Philadelphia, New York City, Pittsburgh, and Detroit also had high rates of completed foreclosures.
However, completed foreclosures were down from a year ago in several states. In Georgia, they were down 52%, in New York 41%, North Carolina 34%, New Jersey 28%, and Maryland 26%.
Despite foreclosure rates rising, they are still well below the foreclosure rates of the 2008 financial crisis.
However, the new data come as concerns mount about soaring house prices, rents, and mortgage rates, which are driving home ownership out of reach for more and more families.
Prices for everyday items such as groceries also remain high due to spiking inflation over the last several years, compounding the troubles for families who may be struggling to pay their rent or mortgage.

SLUG: ME-RINGOFFIRE DATE: 3/06/2008 PHOTOGRAPHER: Tracy A. W

Home Foreclosures Soaring, Especially In These States, Report Shows

Banking

Florida

Ohio

South Carolina

U.S.

Failed public policies are undermining the institution of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/marriage" target="_blank" rel="noopener">marriage</a> in America. Rates of both marriage and child births have been trending down for decades, but the current cost-of-living crisis is poised to accelerate these declines. If you can’t afford a place to live, chances are you won’t get married and have kids.
That’s precisely the calculus for millions of young Americans today who can’t make ends meet despite a record number of them holding second or even third jobs. Sixty percent are living paycheck to paycheck. Americans have accumulated a record-high $1.1 trillion in credit-card debt as many can’t cover even necessities.
But Americans aren’t just falling into debt — they’re falling behind on payments too. Defaults and delinquencies are rising at the fastest pace since the Great Recession when there was a mortgage meltdown and a global financial crisis.
The financial strain on American families explains why people view current economic conditions so unfavorably in polling. Perhaps nothing illustrates this pessimism better than the housing market.
The monthly mortgage payment on a median-price home has doubled in the last three years. Unless your income has also doubled, you’re falling behind when it comes to buying a house.
The median price of a new home has shot up to a stratospheric $435,000. Even the median price of an existing home, at about $387,000, would have been inconceivable three years ago.
The typical family buying a home today will have a monthly cost of homeownership around $3,000. That’s about half the median household income — before income taxes. It’s no wonder that the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s <a href="https://www.atlantafed.org/center-for-housing-and-policy/data-and-tools/home-ownership-affordability-monitor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">homeownership affordability index</a> is at a record low today.
The index even shows that the cost to own a median price home in several major metropolitan areas requires more than 100% of the median household after-tax income. In only a single metropolitan area with at least 500,000 people is the median price home affordable in America.
<div id="attachment_695083" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-695083" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-695083" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/02/GettyImages-1400734918-864x576.jpg" alt="Catherine McQueen. Getty Images. home for sale real estate sign ~ shot with canon eos rp" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/02/GettyImages-1400734918-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/02/GettyImages-1400734918-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/02/GettyImages-1400734918-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/02/GettyImages-1400734918-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/02/GettyImages-1400734918-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/02/GettyImages-1400734918-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/02/GettyImages-1400734918-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Catherine McQueen. Getty Images.</div>
While homeownership is normally a great tool for building wealth, it is also often a precursor to major milestones in life, like starting a family. But with the American dream of homeownership having turned into a nightmare, nearly an entire generation of young people can’t buy a home and are delaying family formation because of it. 
And this isn’t simply theory – <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/monetary-policy-and-birth-rates-the-effect-of-mortgage-rate-pass-through-on-fertility.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">empirical research</a> published by Federal Reserve economists has already demonstrated that higher mortgage interest rates has a negative impact on the birth rate. That’s because those higher mortgage interest rates increase the cost of homeownership.
What caused this sad state of affairs? It was a deadly combination of impolitic public policies.
Since 2020, the federal government has been spending trillions of dollars it didn’t have, running massive deficits. The Federal Reserve covered these deficits by simply creating money for Congress to spend. That devalued the dollar, which fueled inflation as prices soared – including prices for housing.
But home prices got an extra boost from the Fed’s artificially low interest rates. What a homebuyer is really concerned about is the monthly payment on a home, not so much the home’s price. Lower interest rates allowed people to take on much larger mortgages for the same monthly payment, creating frenzied bidding wars for homes.
When interest rates finally rose to fight inflation, they pushed monthly mortgage payments through the roof, completely out of the reach of most Americans. It also trapped millions of Americans in their homes.
When a home is sold with a mortgage, the homeowner loses the loan and must get a new one, at current market rates. If someone bought a home just a few years ago, they are likely going from a 2-3% mortgage to a 7-8% one. That would cause their monthly payment to explode.
The options are to drastically downsize or not move at all — and millions have chosen the latter. That’s helped cause a severe shortage of homes for sale, the lowest level in decades. Consequently, home prices are staying high despite today’s higher interest rates.
While the failures of public policy are often measured in dollars, the unaffordability of housing today demonstrates that there can be even more far-reaching consequences: families never formed, and lives never lived.
* * * 
E.J. Antoni is a public finance economist at the <a href="https://www.heritage.org/staff/ej-antoni" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Heritage Foundation</a> and a senior fellow at the <a href="https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Committee to Unleash Prosperity</a>. 

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Real Estate Agent Adjusts For Sale Sign in Front Yard

Why The Housing Crunch Is Causing Americans To Delay Marriage And Children

Federal Reserve

finance

Heritage Foundation

Interest Rates

Marriage

Prices

Americans are sinking deeper into financial struggles with a whopping $1.1 trillion in credit card debt, and a record number also cannot afford their rent.
Credit card debt jumped by $50 billion in just the last quarter of the year, 4.6% more than the previous quarter, according to data released Tuesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Credit card debt first hit a trillion dollars in August.
Missed credit card payments are also rising among all age groups, especially people in their 30s, the data shows.
&#8220;In the case of credit cards, it looks like things have reverted to a level that is worse than pre-pandemic,&#8221; New York Federal Reserve researchers <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/americans-credit-card-debt-hits-record-113-trillion/story?id=106990807" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> reporters on a call Tuesday.
Inflation and spiking rents are driving credit card debt.
The total household debt also jumped $212 billion up to $17.5 trillion in the last quarter of the year.
Another factor of debt is rising car prices — used cars and new cars are much more expensive than before the pandemic.
Car loans rose by $12 billion in the last quarter of the year, hitting $1.61 trillion. Delinquencies on those loans also increased.
Meanwhile, more Americans than ever are spending a significant portion of their income on rent.
A record 22.4 million renters, about half the country&#8217;s renters, were spending more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities in 2022, according to a <a href="https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/reports/files/Harvard_JCHS_Americas_Rental_Housing_2024.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> released earlier this month by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
The rental market is now cooling, but rent prices are still much higher than pre-pandemic, and wage growth has not kept up.
Median weekly wages grew only 1.7% between 2019 and 2023, government figures <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/the-purchasing-power-of-american-households#ftn3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">show</a>.
People earning between $45,000 and just under $75,000 a year saw the most significant increase in newly “cost-burdened” renters, according to the report.
“So you can certainly imagine the kinds of tradeoffs that have to happen,” Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a senior research associate at the Harvard center, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/record-number-americans-afford-rent-lawmakers-scrambling-107013779#:~:text=The%20latest%20data%20from%20the,income%20on%20rent%20in%202022" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> ABC News.
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-9096" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://onelink.to/dwapp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1700760801843000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2PQrVSrJfhxNb4LcARqniG">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
“Cost-burden renters are spending less on things like food and health care and retirement. So, there are significant implications for the long-term well-being of these households,” Airgood-Obrycki said.
At the same time, homelessness is also on the rise.
About 653,000 people reported being homeless in January of last year, the Harvard report found.
That’s up about 12% from the same time the previous year in 2022, the largest single-year increase ever recorded, the report says. About 71,000 more people were homeless last year than the year before.
Even more striking, last year’s number was about 48% higher than the homeless population in 2015.

credit card and money, credit card putted on dollars.

Americans Owe Over $1.1 Trillion In Credit Card Debt, Record Number Can’t Afford Rent

Americans Owe Over $1.1 Trillion In Credit Card Debt, Record Number Can't Afford Rent

Business

credit card

Homeless

Homelessness

Dozens of public housing employees in New York City were charged with bribery and extortion on Tuesday in a record for the largest number of bribery charges filed in a single day by the Justice Department.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged 70 current and former employees of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) with accepting cash bribes from contractors in exchange for Housing Authority contracts, The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/06/nyregion/nyc-public-housing-corruption.html">reported</a>.
The suspects are accused of accepting more than $2 million in bribes from contractors who wanted to work on nearly 100 of the Housing Authority&#8217;s buildings in all five boroughs. More than $13 million in work was awarded, with the suspects typically getting 10% or 20% kickbacks, sometimes more, prosecutors said.
The suspects were arrested in handcuffs in a major raid Tuesday morning.
“This culture of corruption at NYCHA ends today,” said Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York at a press conference Tuesday morning, calling it a “classic pay to play” scheme.
Much of the Housing Authority corruption involved smaller contracts that initially flew under the radar, like window or plumbing repairs. If city contracts are less than $10,000, local development managers can award them without going through the public bidding process.
Lisa Bova-Hiatt, NYCHA’s chief executive, said the suspects “put their greed first and violated the trust of our residents, their fellow NYCHA colleagues and all New Yorkers.”
“We will not allow bad actors to disrupt or undermine our achievements,” she said.
The smaller contracts have been flagged for potential corruption in the past by both investors and news outlets. Some contractors have even been charged before — in 2021, nine contractors were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/06/nyregion/nyc-public-housing-corruption.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">charged</a> with bribery.
Meanwhile, a host of other problems plague the city&#8217;s Housing Authority, which <a href="https://www.nyc.gov/site/nycha/about/about-nycha.page" target="_blank" rel="noopener">houses</a> more than half a million New Yorkers across more than 2,400 buildings.
The agency has been criticized for operating old buildings with rodents, leaky pipes, and broken elevators, as well as for its backlog of hundreds of thousands of people on the housing waiting list. The properties currently need about $78 billion worth of repairs.
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-9096" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://onelink.to/dwapp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1700760801843000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2PQrVSrJfhxNb4LcARqniG">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
At the same time, people are paying less rent to the agency than ever. In 2022, the Housing Authority collected a record low 65% of the rent it charged.
The city&#8217;s Housing Authority is the largest in the country and receives more than $1.5 billion in federal funding.
Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/21/nyregion/nyc-housing-plan-adams.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">emphasized</a> affordable housing, announcing back in the fall an ambitious goal of 100,000 new homes to combat the city&#8217;s severe housing shortage.

Overhead view of some New York City Housing Authority  (NYCHA) projects (1977)

Dozens Of NYC Govt Employees Arrested By Feds, Most Single-Day Bribery Arrests In DOJ History

Crime

Department of Justice

Eric Adams

New York

Politics

A record number of well over half a million Americans are homeless as rents continue to surge, a new report finds.
About 653,000 people reported being homeless in January of last year, according to a <a href="https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/reports/files/Harvard_JCHS_Americas_Rental_Housing_2024.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> released Thursday by Harvard&#8217;s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
That&#8217;s up about 12% from the same time the previous year in 2022, the largest single-year increase ever recorded, the report says. About 71,000 more people were homeless last year than the year before.
Even more striking, last year&#8217;s number was about 48% higher than the homeless population in 2015.
Sky-high rent prices and inflation are partly to blame, along with the end of pandemic relief, such as eviction protections.
&#8220;Rapidly rising rents, combined with wage losses in the early stages of the pandemic, have underscored the inadequacy of the existing housing safety net, especially in times of crisis,&#8221; the Harvard report said.
The median rent in the U.S. was $1,964 in December, 23% higher since the pandemic, <a href="https://www.rent.com/research/january-2024-rent-report/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to Rent.com.
The rental market is cooling, but rent prices are still much higher than they were pre-pandemic, and wage growth has not kept up.
Median weekly wages grew only 1.7% between 2019 and 2023, government figures <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/the-purchasing-power-of-american-households#ftn3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">show</a>.
People earning between $45,000 and just under $75,000 a year saw the biggest increase in newly &#8220;cost-burdened&#8221; renters, according to the report.
In 2022, about 41% of those renters were spending between 30% and 50% of their monthly pay on housing. That&#8217;s a 5.4 percentage point increase over how many spent this much before the pandemic, and nearly double how many people did back in 2001.
Meanwhile, low-cost rental units are disappearing. More than half a million apartments with rents under $600 disappeared between 2019 and 2022.
Arizona, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas were some of the places that saw the biggest rise in homelessness due to spiking housing costs.
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-9096" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://onelink.to/dwapp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1700760801843000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2PQrVSrJfhxNb4LcARqniG">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
In California and Washington state, both of which have a chronic homelessness problem and overburdened shelters, the issue has gotten worse.
Homelessness <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-06-29/la-los-angeles-homeless-crisis-unhoused-people-by-the-numbers#:~:text=grew%209%25%20in-,Los%20Angeles%20County,county%20on%20any%20given%20night.">increased</a> 9% in Los Angeles County in 2023, totaling an estimated 75,000 people. About 38,000 people <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rising-crime-homelessness-leave-residents-of-san-francisco-and-oakland-on-edge" target="_blank" rel="noopener">are homeless</a> in the Bay Area on a given night. That’s up 35% since 2019. More than 7,000 people are homeless in San Francisco itself.
Crime and open-air drug use often accompany the homeless issue, causing businesses to flee San Francisco’s downtown, where foot traffic has thinned. The deadly fentanyl epidemic, in particular, has ravaged the Bay Area as well as other cities, including New York and Philadelphia, which also struggle with homelessness.
In Washington, the number of homeless people rose 11% to 28,036 last year, although that is likely an undercount, <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/hud-reports-record-high-homeless-count-in-2023-for-u-s-wa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to state data.

Homelessness Reaches All-Time Record In New York City

Record Number Of Americans Are Homeless As Rent Climbs: Report

Record Number Of Americans Are Homeless As Rent Climbs, Report Shows

A popular Florida realtor explained how hard it has become for today&#8217;s younger generation to live a middle class lifestyle, declaring that the old American dream no longer exists.
Freddie Smith, an Orlando realtor with a popular TikTok <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@fmsmith319" target="_blank" rel="noopener">account</a> where he posts about the financial struggles of millennials and Generation Z to his 422,000 followers, said young people need a much higher salary than their parents did to live the same lifestyle.
&#8220;A lot of us grew up middle class, and we watched what middle class was in the 80s and 90s as millennials. And nowadays, what has moved the goalpost more than anything is the housing market,&#8221; Smith <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/the-old-american-dream-died-realtor-details-salary-needed-to-buy-a-home-afford-a-middle-class-life-in-2024" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> Fox News this week.
Smith explained that younger Americans trying to start their lives are often priced out of the housing market.
&#8220;I think most of us in America would define the middle class as somebody who can work a 40-hour-a-week career and can have the income to purchase the average home in America,&#8221; Smith said.
Smith said that a salary as low as $60,000 would have been enough to qualify to buy a home just a few years ago. Now though, the average house price sits around $400,000 or more, meaning people have to make about $120,000 even just to qualify and have a chance at buying a normal house.
Another issue for young people is the crippling debt many face such as student loans, which can be more than $1,000 a month.
&#8220;The millennials, they&#8217;re the pinched generation where college essentially stopped working for most. The debt piled up, and the old American dream died, and we got left holding the bag,&#8221; Smith said.
Besides higher rent costs eating up 30% or 40% of people&#8217;s incomes and student loans taking even more, having children can entail thousands a month for daycare if both parents need to work.
All of these factors make it difficult for young adults to save for a down payment on a home, qualify for a home, and even make monthly mortgage payments after they purchase one, not to mention eventually paying off their home.
Spiking inflation has also contributed to the cost of living woes, particularly for young people who are dealing with these extra expenses.
&#8220;If you are someone who bought a house before 2020 and you have it paid off or you have a 3% interest rate, you are not burdened by the housing costs like the 2024 adults are now,&#8221; Smith said.
As of September, the median home price in the country was $412,000, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/real-estate/median-home-prices-by-state/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to Redfin, a 2% increase over 2022.
In California, the median home price was much higher at $787,000 back in the fall.

For sale by owner sign hangs in front of Long Island house

‘Old American Dream Died’: Realtor Describes How Millennials, Gen Z Struggle To Be Middle Class

'Old American Dream Died': Realtor Describes How Millennials, Gen Z Struggle To Be Middle Class

It is now cheaper to rent than to buy property.
Thanks to rising house prices and mortgage rates, renting a two-bedroom residence is cheaper than buying that property for about 89% of Americans, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20231128140139/https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/11/28/is-it-cheaper-to-rent-or-buy-property" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to an analysis by The Economist.
Back in 2020, that was true for only 16% of Americans.
For about a decade until 2020, the typical house mortgage payment was about 12% cheaper than renting a similar property with the national average deposit of 13%.
Since then, however, house prices have spiked 40%, and mortgages have risen from 3.1% to 7.3% for the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. This has caused nominal mortgage payments to more than double.
Housing costs <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/select/housing-prices-record-high-consider-a-small-down-payment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">are</a> currently at a record high, up 3.9% year over year in September. The median house price was $278,200 back in August, 2019, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/11/economy/housing-market-bubble-sheila-bair/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the National Association of Realtors. By August of this year, the median price had skyrocketed to $407,100.
Meanwhile, rents have only risen about 20% since 2020.
The housing crash that many potential home buyers <a href="https://www.inman.com/2023/11/28/35-of-americans-hope-the-housing-market-will-crash-in-2024/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hope</a> for does not look likely to happen. About 35% of Americans are hoping the market will crash in the next year, according to LendingTree&#8217;s latest consumer survey.
However, house prices are expected to continue increasing into 2025, and mortgage prices are expected to dip but not by much, according to economists with Goldman Sachs.
Rent prices will likely remain about the same due to many newly built apartment buildings and low demand.
Because of all this, homeowners are reluctant to sell their homes and lose the lower mortgage rates they locked in during less expensive years.
Another issue for buyers is an inventory shortage of homes.
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-9096" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://onelink.to/dwapp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1700760801843000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2PQrVSrJfhxNb4LcARqniG">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
&#8220;We’ve got a big hole to dig out of,&#8221; Realtor.com chief economist Danielle Hale <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/real-estate/us-housing-market-has-big-hole-dig-out-realtor-com-chief-economist-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> Wednesday on Fox Business.
&#8220;We do expect to see single-family construction tick up next year by about 0.4%. So not a huge gain, but construction right now is on the upper end of what we&#8217;ve seen it do over the last, really since 2012,&#8221; Hale said.
Meanwhile, spiking inflation is making it harder for Americans to save for a down payment on a house even if they want to buy property at today&#8217;s record-high prices.
More than half of Americans, 53%, say they either have just enough money or cannot meet their expenses, up from 44% in 2019, CBS News polling from September <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/americans-need-over-11k-more-to-keep-2021-standard-of-living-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">showed</a>.
About 75% of people described the economy as poor, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/economy-inflation-prices-jobs-income-recession-unemployment-e9e96643d8a1eb3ab2f57810219b8324" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to a poll last month from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

House for Sale by Owner, Forest Hills, Queens, New York

It’s Now Often Cheaper To Rent Than Buy Property

It's Now Often Cheaper To Rent Than Buy Property

Biden Administration

Economics

Joe Biden has been out and about talking about the rebound of the U.S. economy and the “wins” so-called Bidenomics is creating for America. Television economic pundits did cartwheels earlier this month as new inflation data showed the June Consumer Price Index had fallen to 3.0%, with core CPI up 4.8%, per the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/cpi/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bureau</a> of Labor Statistics. While this is good news for Americans, these numbers do not tell the entire story, nor do they reflect the struggle citizens are facing every day.
To begin, one must remember that the CPI measures year-over-year inflation, meaning that the June number of 3.0% was 3.0% higher than the number in June 2022. Forgotten by most of the talking heads on television is that the June 2022 <a href="https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/economicdata/cpi_07132022.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CPI</a> was 9.1% — meaning that prices in June 2023 were, on average, 12.1% higher than they were just two years ago. This means that in 2023, a family with an income of $100,000 had the purchasing power of a family making just under $88,000 two years previously.
There is financial danger lurking as credit card debt increases, high interest rates preclude the purchase of homes and cars, and consumers are having a harder time obtaining credit.
Credit card <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/credit-card-debt-rising-double-edged-sword-economy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">debt</a> reached a record high of $993 billion in early July 2023, at a time when the average credit card interest rate topped 24%. The credit card interest rate will almost certainly rise later this month as the Federal Reserve is expected to increase interest rates by 0.25% at it’s meeting in late July.
Some pundits believe that increasing credit card debt is a sign that people believe the economy is strong and that they are comfortable taking on additional debt. I disagree. 60% of credit card holders have been carrying <a href="https://catalyst.independent.org/2022/09/22/government-causing-credit-card-debt/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwn_OlBhDhARIsAG2y6zNQIoZij5TXjNC2ibkKunklxZQlfz7Ky8c9eVV5Q0TY0oPrDVS6euoaAoqaEALw_wcB" target="_blank" rel="noopener">balances</a> on their card for at least a year, up 10% from 2021. 59% of Americans who earn less than $50,000 a year carry a credit card balance from month to month. These people aren’t using credit cards to purchase tickets to Hawaii and new TVs, they are using their cards to pay for groceries and to cover their rent or utility bills and paying 24% interest for the privilege of doing so.
Existing <a href="https://www.bankrate.com/real-estate/existing-home-sales/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">home sales</a> were down 3.3% in June, a reduction of nearly 19% compared to June 2022. This should not be a surprise as <a href="https://www.bankrate.com/mortgages/30-year-mortgage-rates/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mortgage</a> rates are currently at 7.24% for a 30-year fixed mortgage. People simply cannot afford to sell their homes and relocate. This makes sound economic sense. No one owning a home with a 2.5% fixed mortgage rate wants to sell their home and relocate, given the extra cost they would incur to purchase a similarly valued home at 7.24%. This phenomenon is precluding many potential first-time home buyers from making that purchase and, in turn, is driving <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/07/19/us-metros-states-with-rent-increases/70425895007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rental rates</a> upwards. In addition, it is making it harder for businesses to fill key needs as fewer potential employees are willing to relocate for a new job.
Unfortunately, many Americans can no longer pay their bills as both foreclosures and auto repossessions continue to rise. In May, the U.S. Foreclosure Market Report “found 35,196 American properties with <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/foreclosures-rising-experts-means-housing-180030618.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">foreclosure</a> filings … a 7% increase from April, but twice that much from 2022,” according to Go Banking Rates. In March, the last data available, the percentage of <a href="https://www.motor1.com/news/664132/delinquent-car-loans-repos-rising/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">delinquent</a> subprime auto loans increased to 5.3%, and repossessions will top 1.5 million this year.
It&#8217;s getting even harder for people to be approved for loans of all types, ranging from credit cards to auto loans. A recent New York Federal Reserve <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/borrowers-are-getting-rejected-for-loans-at-the-highest-rate-in-5-years/ar-AA1e4Yh2?ocid=msedgntp&amp;cvid=da7e37617c5c4986802b6f1c5817e305&amp;ei=29">survey</a> found that the “overall rejection rate for credit applications increased to 21.8% year-over-year in June,” the highest level since June 2018. This is a bad sign for the economy as it shows major <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/more-americans-rejected-for-loans-just-as-they-may-be-feeling-tapped-out-fed-survey-shows/ar-AA1dZL8Y?ocid=msedgntp&amp;cvid=c590680289aa4e0ae2b3ecf8cd7d0e86&amp;ei=123" target="_blank" rel="noopener">banks</a> are setting aside more money to cover bad consumer loans.
So, while President Biden and economic talking heads gush over the reduced rate of inflation, every day, hard working Americans are struggling under unprecedented levels of debt and the inability to obtain the credit to address it. Americans are hurting, and their hurt is being ignored.
Jim Nelles is a Navy veteran and supply chain consultant based in Chicago. His articles have appeared in the Washington Examiner, Newsweek, Foxnews.com, and The Daily Wire. He has served as a chief procurement officer, chief supply chain officer, and chief operations officer for multiple companies.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

foreclosure sign, real estate

Repos And Foreclosures On The Rise, But Bidenomics Is Working

Automobiles

Joe Biden

Americans in certain metropolitan areas are <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/economy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spending</a> an “uncomfortably high” share of their <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/inflation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">incomes</a> on rent, a phenomenon that comes as the residential <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/housing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">housing</a> market remains inaccessible for many families, according to an <a href="https://www.moodys.com/web/en/us/about/insights/data-stories/us-rental-housing-affordability.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> from Moody’s Analytics.
There are currently seven cities where residents pay more than 30% of median income levels to rent an apartment: New York City, and nearby parts of northern New Jersey; Boston, Massachusetts; Los Angeles, California; and Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami, Florida.
“Cost-of-living and shelter affordability concerns are top of mind amongst Americans,” the analysis said. “Not only will rent burdens across median income households remain elevated nationally, but low-income families and those living in the costliest areas will continue to be forced into making difficult trade-offs, often with regard to other life necessities.”
The analysis noted that the only metropolitan area in which residents could expect to pay more than 30% of income on household rent in 1999 was New York City, which had rent-to-income ratios exceeding 53% at the time. More cities have witnessed expensive rental markets as median income grew 77% and rent increased 135% nationwide over the past two decades.
New York City still remains the most expensive rental market in the country with rent-to-income ratios approaching 68% as of last year. Miami follows suit with rent-to-income ratios nearing 42%; cities in Florida have experienced above-average rent growth as an early end to lockdowns and an overall lower tax burden boosted net migration over the past three years.
Increased rental costs occur as home affordability continues to plummet. Public health mandates caused low labor force participation and supply chain constraints, worsening the trend of decreased construction levels for residential real estate, while elevated interest rates in recent months induced high mortgage rates, keeping potential buyers in their apartments.
“Rental demand surged as a result and drove rates sky high,” the analysis continued.
The overall housing market had a shortage of 3.8 million properties as of 2019, according to <a href="https://www.fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/perspectives/us-housing-shortage" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> from the government-backed mortgage company Fannie Mae, while the National Association of Realtors <a href="https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/once-in-a-generation-response-needed-to-address-housing-supply-crisis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">estimates</a> that homebuilders should have constructed between 5.5 million and 6.8 million more houses over the past two decades to match current demand.
Rental markets are also seeing <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/americas-typical-apartment-is-getting-smaller" target="_blank" rel="noopener">decreases</a> in unit sizes, indicating a reversal from the desire for larger properties that corresponded with lockdowns as families spent more time in their homes and breadwinners relied more on virtual work. The average size of new apartments was 887 square feet in 2022, constituting a 3% drop from the previous year and continuing a decline of 54 square feet over the past decade, according to a recent <a href="https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/market-snapshots/national-average-apartment-size/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from RentCafe.
<a class="c-link c-link--focus-visible" href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://onelink.to/dwapp" data-sk="tooltip_parent" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-122625">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP</a>
Median home prices recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/home-prices-fell-year-over-year-for-the-first-time-in-a-decade-but-theres-a-massive-catch" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fell</a> year-over-year for the first time in more than a decade even as elevated mortgage rates are still rendering properties less affordable for prospective buyers, according to an <a href="https://www.redfin.com/news/housing-market-update-home-sale-prices-fall-first-time/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> from Redfin. Homeowners who acquired mortgages at low rates in the months after the lockdowns have reason to avoid selling their properties, a phenomenon that could further limit the number of houses on the market and decrease affordability for buyers.
Median home sale prices increased from $322,600 in the second quarter of 2020 to $467,700 in the fourth quarter of 2022, a metric which has since declined to $436,800 in the first quarter of 2023, according to <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Here Are The Seven Cities Where Rent Exceeds 30% Of Median Income

Here Are The Seven Cities Where Rent Reaches 'Uncomfortably High' Share Of Income

Boston

Los Angeles

Miami

Menu