In his speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, Vice Presidential nominee J.D. Vance explained America’s housing affordability crisis and contrasted it with what economists and policy experts say.
The Ohio senator and former venture capitalist Vance offered a vision of a housing market battered by Wall Street malfeasance, stagnant wages, and illegal immigration. “Wall Street barons crashed the economy and American builders went out of business,” Vance said during his speech. “As tradesmen scrambled for jobs, houses stopped being built.”
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“And then the Democrats flooded this country with millions of illegal aliens,” he continued. “So citizens had to compete with people who shouldn’t even be here for precious housing.”
In June, he tweeted, “Not having 20 million illegal aliens who need to be housed (often at public expense) will make housing more affordable for American citizens.”
That is not the problem, the data suggests. According to the National Review, roughly 223 million Americans own or live in homes that are owned, compared to about three million illegal immigrants who are thought to reside in owner-occupied homes.
More than that, mass deportation, as suggested by Vance, could even exacerbate the housing affordability problem. Immigrants make up a sizable portion of the construction workforce, and their removal could further slow housing production. According to a report issued in 2021 by the National Association of Home Builders, immigrants account for about 24% of workers in the construction industry.
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Economists and housing experts argue that the problem goes back to the 2008 financial crash, which led to a drop in new home construction. Then, restrictive zoning laws, the COVID-19 pandemic, increased construction costs, and changing demographics drove up housing prices.
According to the Government Accountability Office, the current shortage of affordable housing in the U.S. is the product of high interest rates, low inventory, and the growing number of adults looking for homes.
More than that, during the pandemic, record-low interest rates and a shift toward remote work fueled demand, particularly for larger homes. The combination of limited supply and increased demand drove prices to historic highs in many markets.
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“The simple fact is there are not enough homes in this country, and that’s pushing homeownership out of reach for too many families,” Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow, said in June. “Filling the housing shortage is the long-term answer to making housing more affordable. We are in a big hole, and it will take more than the status quo to dig ourselves out of it."
According to Zillow, despite recent efforts to ramp up construction, the housing shortage is worsening. The deficit grew to 4.5 million homes in 2022, up from 4.3 million the previous year.
While the pandemic sparked a surge in homebuilding, with 2022 marking the strongest year for construction since the early days of the Great Recession, the uptick in building activity has been insufficient to meet the growing demand. While 1.4 million new homes were built in 2022, U.S. households increased by 1.8 million during the same period.
As demand continues to outpace supply, prices remain elevated, putting homeownership increasingly out of reach for many Americans – which is not what Vance suggested during his speech.
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