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ALPERN AT LARGE - While I’m sure this is an election year-related effort, the Orange Man in the White House wants more Americans to affordably buy their own houses.
Kind of a shocker, considering how President Donald J. Trump spent so much of his life buying land to create BIG developments, and has been accused of catering to rich clients at the expense of the poor for so long.
Apparently, the President is taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes!!!
Not exactly a classic Republican move, considering how the GOP has too often favored the wealthy over other economic classes over the past few decades.
But it’s not hard to conclude that President Trump is no ordinary Republican leader. So when he states that, “People live in homes, not corporations,” and that the “American Dream is increasingly out of reach for far too many people, especially younger Americans” it can and should be a head-turning moment for America.
After all, we’ve gotten so used to foreign and domestic investors buying up in cash the few houses that are still affordable that many Americans presume they’ll never own a piece of the pie.
Real estate investment trusts (REITs), Chinese billionaires, and large powers both domestic and foreign have reduced our housing supply by far too much for far too long.
Accordingly, the stocks of various real estate-related entities will fall, but the issue of Main Street vs. Wall Street has been allowed to fester to the point where it’s made the average Joe/Jane American cynical if anyone will stand up for him/her.
The BIG Question: Will Governor Newsom of California, Governor Hochul of New York, and other Democratic and GOP state governors alike take a frighteningly-overdue stance to support the middle class with respect to affordable home purchases?
California in particular has seen all sorts of homeowners for the past 10-20 years grab the money of some Chinese or REIT-related entity for their homes (10-20% above asking price) for cash, make major bank, and then flee the state and use that as their retirement fund.
Meanwhile, it’s like “what’s the point?” with respect to responsibly saving up for the down payment on a sustainable mortgage in the minds of younger middle-class savers and workers in this nation who were led to believe they could succeed if they “followed the rules.”
Furthermore, President Trump is ordering his representatives to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds to bring down housing costs and drive mortgage rates down, and to do so with the cooperation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The specifics? The legality? The optics vs. specifics? We’ll see.
And while I like the idea of telling REITs to stand down, and Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac to step up, Trump’s other idea of a 50-year mortgage is one I am NOT too bullish about.
Still, it’s clear that solutions are being sought by Donald “I love real estate” Trump to help middle-class Americans to own their own homes (and maybe keep a GOP majority in Congress this November, to boot).
Will this forceful eye-opening effort on the part of the President enhance the status of the President and GOP, who are still despised and rebuffed by many Americans (restated “American voters”) going into the midterm elections later this year?
Because in this state, one of the biggest disappointments with Governor Newsom and the rest of Sacramento has been the lack of prioritization of American taxpaying citizens to buy their own homes and to enjoy lower food and fuel and utility costs.
Why are the aforementioned big interests allowed so much by a California Democratic Party who purports to represent the “little guy”?
Why didn’t President Joe Biden think of this first?
Why does the “liberal” California Legislature seem to support developers and other big real estate entities over more useful forces and entities, the latter of which would focus more on helping individuals and families who just want to own their own homes?
Does Sacramento over-represent the uber-rich over other portions of the California electorate?
Is Governor Newsom’s lack of successful recovery in the Palisades a year after so many homes were lost in the recent wildfire suggestive of greed, incompetence, or hidden agendas on the part of Sacramento?
One way or another, there are many, MANY Americans who might or might not give a rip about Venezuela, the Epstein files, Greenland, Ukraine, ICE, the Middle East, and other hot-button news stories…
…but they very much want to FINALLY purchase and own their own homes.
(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D, is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud husband and father. He was active for 20 years on the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) as a Board Member focused on Planning and Transportation, and helped lead the grassroots efforts of the Expo Line as well as connecting LAX to MetroRail. His latest project is his fictional online book entitled The Unforgotten Tales of Middle-Earth, and can be reached at[email protected]. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)
