Lydia Deckert / Troy Deckert
The United States can build homes and rentals at fair prices. It’s possible, doable, and customers are waiting. It’s not that the U.S. doesn’t have the private funding. It’s not that the U.S. doesn’t spend enough tax money. In fact, the U.S. already spends tax money on homes at the same rate as the European nation of Austria, which has plenty of homes and rentals at fair prices. It’s not that U.S. workers can’t pay for their own homes and rentals out of the wages that they have right now, if the prices were fair. It’s not any of those things. It’s that U.S. elected officials and leaders have avoided the decision to commit to a housing inventory for the middle class and for working families of America. Upscale real estate takes over, in region after region. It’s coming your way, if it hasn’t already. The economic and social stakes are high. Expensive rent and high home prices take too much of the income of average earners. This is a leading root cause of rising unfair economic inequality. It makes it harder to avoid financial instability for half the nation, well into the middle class, certainly not anymore just for the poorest of the poor. This financial instability increases wider social instability, which brings social strife and personal strife. It does not have to be this way.Three real estate methods can lead to home ownership and rentals at fair prices: (1) property tax caps for average earners and seniors; (2) market-based inventory commitments for starter homes and apartments; and (3) agreements for future generations. These methods have been proven to work through many decades of real-world use. As more and more hard-working, striving people are being priced out, these decisions await.
