Homeownership Under Fire!

This Time We Are Sounding the Alarms

by Steve Harney on October 12, 2011 ·

Occasionally, Steve Harney, our founder and lead content creator, asks us permission to share his personal feelings on a current real estate issue. Today is one of those times. – The KCM Crew



One of the things I often hear from people I meet is that real estate and mortgage professionals should have seen the current housing crisis coming and done something to prevent it. We should have realized that easing lending practices would lead to millions of families buying a home they could never afford. We should have warned our neighbors not to use their homes as ATMs. We should have realized that the economy could never withstand such growth and was about to crash.

Maybe these people are correct. Looking back, perhaps we could have been better stewards of the home buying process. We are committed to not making that same mistake again. Now, if we see a possible challenge in the future, we will speak up. That is what caused the writing of this blog post.

WE MUST SOUND THE ALARMS!

ALARM: Homeownership Percentage Has Dropped Dramatically!!

MSNBC.com, in an article entitled Housing Bust Worst Since Great Depression reported:

“The analysis by the Census Bureau found the homeownership rate fell to 65.1 percent last year… analysts say the U.S. may never return to its mid-decade housing boom peak in which nearly 70 percent of occupied households were owned by their residents.”

ALARM: People Are Losing Hope in the American Dream

In the same article, Patrick Newport, economist with IHS Global Insight is quoted saying:

“The changes now taking place are mind-boggling: the housing market has completely crashed and attitudes toward housing are shifting from owning to renting. While 10 years ago owning a home was the American Dream, I’m not sure a lot of people still think that way.”

ALARM: The Safety and Well Being of the Family Being Sacrificed

If we look at Fannie Mae’s quarterly National Home Survey, as far back as we can go, the top four reasons for buying a home are the same. The top four reasons people buy a home are:

1. It means having a good place to raise children and provide them with a good education
2. To have a physical structure where their family feels safe
3. It allows for more space for their family
4. It gives them control over what they do with their living space including renovations and updates.

Are children no longer important? Is safety less of a consideration today? Is the pride of homeownership soon to be forgotten? We must look at the long range consequences of being a renters’ society.

ALARM: Building Family Wealth Being Threatened

Let’s look at homeownership as an investment. The Federal Reserve does a survey every 3 years. In 1998 the average Homeowner’s net worth exceeded that of renters by 31 times. In 2001 it was 36 times and eventually in 2007 it was all the way up to 46 times that of renters. Now, homeownership isn’t about a guaranteed financial short-term return – the market goes up, down and back up again. We have to be prepared for the long-term and a key component to wealth is homeownership. Even in these toughest of times, the wealth of the homeowner is over 30 times that of renters.

At a time when we are discussing the gap in wealth between the top 1% and the other 99%, how does the less fortunate paying rent to pay off the mortgages of the more fortunate make any sense?

Bottom Line

Homeownership is important to the American family. If we lose this as a basic concept, what else do we lose? We didn’t realize the consequences when it was too easy to buy a house a few years ago and we are paying a price for that. We will pay an even larger price if we don’t realize the consequences of it being much too difficult for many to own a home today. SOUND THE ALARMS!

A Follow-up To Yesterday’s Blog

by The KCM Crew on October 13, 2011

Yesterday, Steve Harney expressed his thoughts on how homeownership is being impacted in this country. Some believed that Steve thought the American people where losing faith in the importance of owning a home. That is not the case. He just worries about how housing policies may impact our neighbors and our neighborhoods. Here is a blog we posted earlier this year on the issue. – The KCM Crew

Redistributing Wealth to the RICH?

Many people are placing the concept of homeownership under attack. There is more and more debate whether we should limit government assistance to homeowners. The administration just came out with their Reforming America’s Housing Finance Market: A Report to Congress. The report acknowledges the advantages of homeownership:

“…which has helped millions of middle class families build wealth and achieve the American Dream.”

The paper also talks about curtailing a century of government assistance for American homeownership (ex. the elimination of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac):

“But our plan also dramatically transforms the role of government in the housing market. In the past, the government’s financial and tax policies encouraged housing purchases and real estate investment over other sectors of our economy, and ultimately left taxpayers responsible for much of the risk incurred by a poorly supervised housing finance market.

Going forward, the government’s primary role should be limited to robust oversight and consumer protection, targeted assistance for low- and moderate-income homeowners and renters.”

At the same time it speaks of increasing its support for rental housing:

“The Administration believes that we must continue to take the necessary steps to ensure that Americans have access to an adequate range of affordable housing options. This does not mean all Americans should become homeowners … we should ensure that there are a range of affordable options for the 100 million Americans who rent, whether they do so by choice or necessity.”

In a press release announcing the administration’s points, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan is quoted:

“We must continue to take the necessary steps to ensure that Americans have access to quality housing they can afford. This involves rebalancing our housing priorities to support a range of affordable options, from promoting much-needed financing for quality, affordable rental homes to ensuring the availability of safe, and sustainable mortgage products for current and future homeowners.”

This is not just a matter of semantics. In his prepared testimony before the House Committee on Financial Services, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said:

“Our goal is not for every American to become a homeowner.”

The administration is taking a strong stance against government’s role in supporting homeownership. This would be a major change in policy. Assistance for homeownership has been important to America for a century. Many young people were able to attend college because their parents were willing and able to refinance their home to pay the tuition. Many American business owners got their start-up capital by taking an equity loan on their house. Renters won’t be able to ask their landlords to help pay their child’s college tuition. Renters can’t expect landlords to finance the development of the new product they discovered.
If we start to create a land with greater numbers of renters, those able to still purchase property will get wealthier collecting the rents from those who can no longer attain the American Dream. The administration calls for more support for these developers:

“The Administration will explore ways to provide greater support for rental housing. One option would be to do so by expanding FHA’s capacity to support lending to the multifamily market.”

This will lead to the redistribution of wealth in this country with the owners of the rental units building family wealth with profits generated by this real estate.
Diana Olick in an article for CNBC Realty Check quotes Democrat Melvin Watt of North Carolina:

“…there’s not going to be any home ownership at the low income level…Rich people will have home ownership and rich people will make money on apartment rentals, but we’ll be a renter nation for low-income people.”

We have to make sure this is the America we want.