Newly released data regarding the housing market’s continual deterioration further threaten President Joe Biden’s reelection chances.
If he stays in the race, that is.
Nonetheless, whoever the Democratic nominee ends up being will be hampered by the fact that home affordability has sunk to its lowest point since 2007.
A new report from Attom reveals that the cost of mortgage payments, property insurance, and taxes accounted for just over 35% of the average wage in the second quarter. That number was at 43% for more than a third of U.S. markets despite 28% being considered the baseline percentage for affordability. The cost of a typical home was 32.1% a year ago.
This news is timely given that the latest report from the Mortgage Bankers Association reveals that mortgage rates rose above the 7% mark last week, from 6.93% to 7.03%. Mortgage loan application volume also fell last week, dropping by 2.6% on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the market composite index.
This plethora of new data further confirms that the current nature of the housing market is one of a crisis. The cost of living is unsustainable for so much of the public amid perpetual inflation , sky-high interest rates , and rising child care costs .
The state of the economy is naturally the top issue for voters heading into November. Biden had the opportunity to ease their qualms during last Thursday’s presidential debate against former President Donald Trump in the first question of the night.
He displayed many typical talking points, first by blaming Trump and second by claiming that he “brought out a position where we have 800,000 new manufacturing jobs.”
No matter the strange wording, Biden’s common claim that he created 800,000 manufacturing jobs is highly misleading given that most of those gains were due to a bounce back from the pandemic. Only 34,000 manufacturing jobs have been added since October 2022. Almost every claim Biden makes about Trump’s poor handling of the economy and his success is derived from the economic pitfalls of COVID-19.
Biden addressed the housing crisis directly when he said that he will make sure to “reduce the price of housing” by “building 2 million new units.”
Such a claim indirectly asserts that high housing costs are due to a lack of supply. Michael Fratantoni, MBA’s senior vice president and chief economist, begs to differ. He said in a statement that “Purchase applications decreased the final full week of June, even as both new and existing inventories have increased over the past few months.”
Though Biden having no grasp on economics isn’t news, his patronizing and misleading rhetoric has only worsened as his presidency has continued. There’s a strong disconnect between the perception of the economy and the romanticized version touted by the Biden administration.
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The Left so often picks its brain trying to figure out why middle-class voters don’t buy Biden’s story.
Come on, folks, he’s from Scranton!
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