The lack of urgency from a lot of politicians on housing affordability is wild to me. This is the single most important item in a family's budget. It determines almost everything in life. And yet there has been so little reform.

Every politician in the country should be thinking about this issue sun up to sun down. It's the number one issue facing your constituents. And yet we see so little action. Why? Fetishizing process? Scared by phony non-profits or angry callers who can't vote you out? Come on.

@mnolangray For the other half of the electorate it's their largest asset and best performing investment ...

@mnolangray Genx seems to be checked out and millennials too few in power. Boomers are meh

@mnolangray Sincere question: what can the government do to combat this?

@mnolangray Especially in the blue states. Their votes and futures literally depend on housing affordability, lol.

@mnolangray The idea that new housing should be safe, legal, and rare is so ingrained in local politicians’ minds. They think they can build more housing while still keeping both homeowner-NIMBYs and left-NIMBYs happy; those are the biggest local voices that they’re used to appeasing.

@mnolangray And on the left, it’s shocking how little attention is paid to market rate housing, which is what the vast majority of Americans live in.

@mnolangray Anything that makes home ownership cheaper will drive down the price of existing homes. We have 70ish years of treating homes as financial assets to unwind. No one on Wall Street nor most homeowners would tolerate a drop in prices.

@mnolangray Because boomers vote more and they don’t want housing to crash

@mnolangray It’s actually scary how little anyone wants to do, and it’s so obvious that we are governed by a class of property owners who got theirs and love watching their line go up

@mnolangray It's something where the long term benefits are broad, diffuse, and hard to get credit for. The short term pain is immediate and clearly ascribable. I'm not surprised. Also it benefits future voters more than present voters. The incentives are poorly aligned for the average pol.

@mnolangray Most useful action is at the city and state level

@mnolangray Most of the industry is still enamoured with financialization nation despite the obvious consequences. 🤑 Doesn't help when the industry "experts" are gaslighting people at every turn.

@mnolangray Every state has a powerful city lobbyist group. In Minnesota that is @MinnesotaCities. They have a multi-decade head start controlling the "local control" narrative while offering many working class elected officials nice state and DC trips paid for by taxpayers.

@mnolangray Mayor Bowser (DC) just hosted a housing summit here in DC with the National League of Cities. Housing is foundational and vital and many leaders at a local level who have to directly address resident need are focused on it. nlc.org/post/2025/01/1…

@mnolangray Deportations will affect affordability, but in a very uneven way. It will improve more for low end rentals, and in places where prices went up the most in 4 years. It will improve traffic, parking, wait times, state and local budgets, probably federal budget.

@mnolangray Housing affordability coupled with community safety

@mnolangray Because there is no affordable housing lobby influential enough to drive urgency. Real Estate is also a local issue at the end of the day and controlled at the state, county, and municipal level. Fed’s can’t wave a wand and make decrees on national housing policy.

@mnolangray Arguably this is >50% of everyone’s visceral reaction to “inflation”

@mnolangray Well, we could have had Kamala Harris who promised 3 million new units of low income housing but maga said no no, give me the guy who's going to start a crypto currency and make $30 billion overnight while we live in a trailer and don't have running water.

@mnolangray It's basically an issue of young vs old. The old want to keep home prices high and they have the votes. With declining fertility, they'll always have more votes than the young.

@mnolangray Politicians do what they are paid to do. Unfortunately, the majority of their pay comes from special interests and insider trading, not the taxpayers.

@mnolangray California shouldn’t get aid unless it fixes its zoning and environmental regulations. Would create billions in GDP and likely pay for the aid in short order.

@mnolangray the left pushes anti-market policies that hurt housing, that is there sacred cow. The right wants to continue single family detached housing. Nobody wants to give up arbitrarily power to control housing.

@mnolangray extensive delays in getting permits, massive permit fees, difficulty in obtaining financing to build, expensive materials & labor & crazy red tape! these are all pretty simple to correct, but if we do housing will get cheaper and all that gravy $ decreases. not good for govt!

@mnolangray If, in its zeal to offset tax cuts for the oligarchs, Congress repeals the mortgage interest deduction & the SALT deduction (coupled with unaffordable insurance) millions of mortgages will default, and millions of SF houses will be un-sellable.

@mnolangray They care very much..about upholding the status quo. Just look how quickly they act when it's threatened (eg the Bass stuff in LA).

@mnolangray Most if not all market failures started by overly zealous politicians want to do something and ends up making it much worse. Government has no ability to make anything cheaper, it simply takes a huge cut as a middleman for shifting the burden around.

@mnolangray This is an excellent point. I don’t think families automatically equate a lack of housing affordability with things like planning reform. Instead, they blame landlords or banks and want action by politicians to cap rent increases or lower interest rates.

@mnolangray And now it’s too late. Tarriffs on timber from Canada among other materials, plus 7% mortgage rates. Who in their right mind would risk building now? I ain’t investing in that.

@mnolangray @adamkovac They have a home and are not really interested in those who don’t! Such would require getting involved in the real dirty work of the needy. They lack the passion to do so. Real work will occur in the housing arena when anarchy breaks out abouthis issue. Till then expect little!!!

@mnolangray Mass deportations beginning this week will help with housing affordability.

@mnolangray And the second and third most important items - healthcare and education - have arguably seen even less attention. You’re hitting at the root of the deep anger and distrust in the political system right now.