内容来源：美国新闻网站CNBC，原文链接见文末
翻译整理：石曼卿，陈杰
*机器翻译未经详细复检，仅供参考
Affordable housing is a cornerstone of the “opportunity economy” that Vice President Kamala Harris sketched out last week. Harris’ economic policy pitch included proposals to lower the costs of owning and renting a home in the U.S.
“We should be making everything to make it more affordable to buy a home, not less,” Harris said during her speech in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The Democratic presidential nominee called for the construction of 3 million new housing units, both for rent and for sale, over the next four years — an initiative housing experts say would help improve affordability.
That’s “the most exciting part of her plans to me,” said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin, an online real estate brokerage.
Supply is housing policy’s ‘bipartisan sweet spot’
“The bipartisan sweet spot around the housing affordability challenges that we have today is on increasing supply,” said Dennis Shea, executive director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s J. Ronald Terwilliger Center for Housing Policy.
Ever since the foreclosure crisis, a major period of property seizures in the U.S. between 2007 and 2010, there have been far fewer new single-family homes and multi-family rental buildings under construction, said Janneke Ratcliffe, vice president of the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute, a non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C.
There’s “a more acute shortfall” when it comes to affordable homes, she said, whether for renters looking for quality rental units or first-time buyers.
To get to those 3 million new units, a Harris-Walz administration would introduce a “first-ever tax incentive” for homebuilders who sell starter homes to first-time homebuyers, according to the proposals unveiled last week.
The initiative would complement the Neighborhood Homes Tax Credit, according to the announcement, which would be created by a bill pending in Congress called the Neighborhood Homes Investment Act.
Shea said the tax credit, which “has strong bipartisan support,” would promote the creation and rehabilitation of starter homes for sale in distressed communities.
Former President Donald Trump has also talked about ways to increase housing supply as part of his presidential campaign proposals.
“We’re going to open up tracks of federal land for housing construction,” Trump said in an Aug. 15 press conference. “We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
But Edward Pinto, senior fellow and codirector of the American Enterprise Institute’s Housing Center, said it’s “much, much harder” for the government to pass “supply-side proposals,” compared with efforts that generate demand by making homebuying easier for consumers.
“My conclusion is that [Harris’] housing plan would be worse than doing nothing,” he said.
‘It’s hard to define what a starter home is’
It will be important for Harris to clarify what she means by “starter home,” said James Tobin, CEO of the National Association of Home Builders.
“It’s hard to define what a starter home is,” said Tobin, as underlying costs make it hard to keep building expenses low.
“In most markets in the country, it’s hard to build to that first-time home buyer because of labor costs, land costs, borrowing costs for a builder, and then material cost,”he said.
Defining a range of price points for a starter home will also be important, as it may vary widely across different markets, said Tobin.
“In California, a starter home might cost [$700,000] or $800,000, but in the South ... it might only be $250,000 or $300,000,” he said.
The $40 billion innovation fund seems ‘very high’
The list of Harris’ proposals also includes a $40 billion innovation fund. The money would empower local governments to fund and support local solutions to build housing.
Yet some experts are skeptical it will fulfill the intended goal.
“The federal government doesn’t have a whole lot of authority over what happens at the local level,” said Redfin’s Fairweather. “It’s up to the local planning commissions whether they’re going to allow for more housing in order to get that [innovation fund] money.”
“But time and time again, locals and local governments, local homeowners ignore incentives because they’re so resistant to building more housing,” Fairweather said.
Additionally, the $40 billion housing innovation fund may be too expensive, making it unlikely to get bipartisan support, Shea said.
“The price tag there seems very high,” he said. “I don’t know if the market could bear that price tag in Congress.”
Aid for first-time homebuyers has less support
Harris proposes to provide $25,000 down-payment assistance to first-time homebuyers who have paid rent on time for two years, with more generous support for qualifying first-generation homeowners.
The proposal stems from an idea the Biden-Harris administration presented earlier this year, which called on Congress to implement $25,000 in down-payment assistance exclusively for 400,000 first-generation buyers, or first-time buyers whose parents weren’t homeowners, and a $10,000 tax credit for first-time buyers.
Harris’ blueprint would apply to all first-time buyers and broaden the reach to more than 4 million qualifying applicants over four years.
But “there’s just not a lot of bipartisan support,” Shea said.
During an Aug. 16 appearance on Fox Business, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said Harris’ $25,000 down payment assistance “will only make the demand higher with the supply not moving, which means that prices will go up, fewer people are going to be able to afford it.”
“And frankly, unless they’re going to embed financial literacy in any program, it only means there will be a higher level of default,” said Scott.
To help renters, Harris addressed two pending pieces of legislation. She called on Congress to pass the Stop Predatory Investing Act, a bill that calls for removing key tax benefits for those who own 50 or more single-family properties. This initiative would curtail major investors from buying up large sums of single-family rental homes.
Meanwhile, the Preventing the Algorithmic Facilitation of Rental Housing Cartels Act would crack down on companies who use algorithmic systems to fix market rent prices.
关于哈里斯可支付住房提案的“起步房”税收减免和首次购房者援助：需了解的内容
作者：安娜·特蕾莎·索拉
2024年8月20日
可支付住房是美国副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯上周勾勒出的“机会经济”的基石之一。哈里斯的经济政策提案包括了一系列降低美国住房拥有和租赁成本的措施。
“我们应该尽一切努力让买房变得更加负担得起，而不是更难”，哈里斯在北卡罗来纳州罗利的演讲中说道。
这位民主党总统候选人呼吁在未来四年内建设300万套新住房单元，既包括出租房屋，也包括待售房屋——住房专家认为这一举措将有助于改善住房负担能力。
“对我来说，这是她计划中最令人兴奋的部分，”Redfin在线房地产经纪公司首席经济学家达里尔·费尔韦瑟表示。
住房政策中的“跨党派共识点”
“双方在当前住房负担能力挑战问题上达成的共识点是增加供应，”两党政策中心的J. Ronald Terwilliger住房政策中心执行主任丹尼斯·谢伊表示。
自2007年至2010年期间的止赎危机（美国发生大规模房产被查封的时期）以来，新的单户住宅和多户出租建筑的建设大幅减少，华盛顿特区非营利智库城市研究所住房金融政策中心副总裁珍妮克·拉特克利夫说。
她表示，无论是租户寻找优质租赁单元，还是首次购房者，都面临着“更为严重的短缺”。
根据上周公布的提案，为了实现新增300万个住房单元的目标，哈里斯-沃尔兹政府将为向首次购房者出售起步房的房屋建筑商推出“首次税收激励”。
根据公告，该计划将补充国会正在审议的《邻里住房投资法案》所创建的《邻里住房税收抵免》。
谢伊表示，这一税收抵免“得到了强有力的跨党派支持”，将促进在受困社区中创建和修复待售的起步房。
前总统唐纳德·特朗普也在他的总统竞选提案中谈到了增加住房供应的方法。
“我们将开放联邦土地进行住房建设，”特朗普在8月15日的新闻发布会上说。“我们迫切需要为无法负担当前住房价格的人提供住房。”
但美国企业研究所住房中心高级研究员兼联合主任爱德华·平托表示，政府推动“供应端提案”要比通过那些通过降低购房门槛来增加需求的措施“困难得多”。
“我的结论是，哈里斯的住房计划还不如不做，”他说。
“很难定义什么是起步房”
全国房屋建筑商协会首席执行官詹姆斯·托宾表示，哈里斯需要明确什么是“起步房”。
“很难定义什么是起步房，”托宾说，因为基本成本使得保持建筑成本低廉变得困难。
“在全国大多数市场中，由于劳动力成本、土地成本、建筑商的借款成本以及材料成本，针对首次购房者建造住房变得非常困难，”他说。
托宾表示，定义起步房的价格范围也很重要，因为在不同市场中可能会有很大差异。
“在加州，一套起步房可能要花费70万到80万美元，但在南部……可能只需要25万到30万美元，”他说。
400亿美元创新基金似乎“非常高”
哈里斯提案清单中还包括一项400亿美元的创新基金。该资金将赋予地方政府权力，以资助和支持地方住房建设解决方案。
然而，一些专家对其能否实现预期目标表示怀疑。
“联邦政府对地方层面发生的事情没有太多权力，”Redfin的费尔韦瑟表示。“是否允许更多住房建设取决于地方规划委员会，而这与是否获得创新基金的资金有关。”
“但一次又一次地，地方政府和当地房主无视激励措施，因为他们对建设更多住房的抵触情绪非常强烈，”费尔韦瑟说。
此外，谢伊表示，400亿美元的住房创新基金可能过于昂贵，难以获得两党支持。
“这个价格标签看起来非常高，”他说。“我不知道国会是否能承受这个价格。”
首次购房者援助支持较少
哈里斯提议为首次购房者提供2.5万美元的首付款援助，这些购房者在过去两年中按时支付了房租，并对符合条件的第一代房主提供更慷慨的支持。
该提案源于拜登-哈里斯政府今年早些时候提出的一个想法，呼吁国会为40万名第一代购房者（即父母不是房主的首次购房者）提供2.5万美元的首付款援助，并为首次购房者提供1万美元的税收抵免。
哈里斯的蓝图适用于所有首次购房者，并将覆盖范围扩大到在四年内有资格的超过400万名申请者。
但谢伊表示，“这一提案并没有得到太多的两党支持。”
8月16日，参议员蒂姆·斯科特在Fox Business的节目中表示，哈里斯的2.5万美元首付款援助“只会在供应不变的情况下进一步提高需求，这意味着价格将上涨，能够负担得起的人将减少。”
“坦率地说，除非他们在任何计划中加入金融知识教育，否则这只会导致更高的违约率，”斯科特说。
为帮助租户，哈里斯提到了两项正在审议的法案。她呼吁国会通过《制止掠夺性投资法案》，该法案呼吁取消那些拥有50套或更多单户住宅的业主的关键税收优惠。这项提案将限制大投资者大规模购买单户租赁房屋。
同时，《防止算法操控租赁住房垄断的法案》将打击使用算法系统来操纵市场租金价格的公司。
