内容来源：美国新闻网站NBC News，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
Aug. 18, 2024
By Davis Giangiulio
The U.S. is short millions of homes for buyers and tenants alike, and half of renter households are deemed “cost burdened.”
Yuki Iwamura / Bloomberg via Getty Images file
Housing is a huge pain point for voters, but the issue has only just begun to move off the margins of the presidential campaign. The tricky politics of real estate is a key reason why.
On Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris shared new housing plans in her economic agenda, which includes efforts to help struggling renters, crack down on corporate landlords and spur the construction of 3 million new homes in four years.
So far, the Democratic candidate has offered more detailed housing proposals than her Republican rival, former President Donald Trump. But both face a political challenge that has long bedeviled U.S. housing policies and is only getting harder as the affordability crisis has worsened: “What we want from housing as a country is for it to both be affordable and for it to be a way to generate wealth,”said Chen Zhao, economics lead at the real estate company Redfin.
“The problem is that you can’t generate wealth without prices going up, and if prices are going up, they’re no longer affordable,” she said.
Mortgage rates are finally retreating after blowing past 7% in recent months, yet home buying remains historically difficult. Rents continue to squeeze millions of tenants, with shelter costs up more than 5% since last year leaving half of all renter households “cost burdened.” Meanwhile,the economy is still short of anywhere from 2.5 million to 4.5 million homes.
“Supply is the No. 1 thing that we have to be worried about,” said Zhao. “The main thing we need to do is to build more supply, and one of the main constraints — perhaps the main constraint to building more supply — oftentimes is local zoning rules and building regulations.”
That reality is a political minefield. Not only does the federal government have limited sway over state and municipal zoning, which can be a community-level flashpoint, but cheaper housing risks reducing property values for existing homeowners, who could then seek revenge at the polls.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that both Harris and Trump have emphasized ways to bring down costs in the current supply-strapped market.
Harris on Friday proposed $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time buyers, going beyond the $10,000 tax break the Biden-Harris administration floated. The GOP platform similarly calls to “promote homeownership through Tax Incentives and support first-time homebuyers.”
This policy push marks a shift that began about four years ago and has only intensified, said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “Prior to 2020, when presidential candidates talked about housing at all, it was always about middle-class home ownership,” she said.
Now, Democrats especially are prioritizing the issue “much more than they have before,” including “the needs of people with the lowest incomes,” said Yentel, in part because of “the severity itself” of the crisis.
Housing developers say more generous tax incentives and less red tape would help spark more residential construction.
Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images file
Trump, for his part, has said that sweeping crackdowns on both legal and unauthorized immigration — including detaining and deporting millions of people — would free up housing supply for U.S. citizens, lowering prices. But some economists question that conclusion, largely because of the impact on new supply: Slashing the construction industry’s large foreign-born workforce could constrain homebuilding.
“It’s generally considered that the net effect of immigration restrictions is to put upward pressure on housing costs,” said Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute. In addition, some analysts say Trump’s calls for steeper tariffs could drive up the costs of many construction materials, discouraging development.
A Trump campaign spokesperson didn’t directly address these criticisms but said the former president “will rein in federal spending, stop the unsustainable invasion of illegal aliens which is driving up housing costs, cut taxes for American families, eliminate costly regulations, and free up appropriate portions of federal land for housing.”
Both parties support opening more federally owned land to development, among other ideas to boost supply. On Friday, Harris proposed a new tax break to builders of “starter homes,” expanded tax incentives for constructing affordable rentals and a $40 billion fund “to spur innovative housing construction.”
Jim Tobin, CEO of the National Association of Home Builders, an industry group, said he welcomes tax incentives to jump-start development but said too many hurdles remain.
“This administration has spoken out of both sides of its mouth,” he said. “While they talk about more supply, they put more roadblocks in the way of creating more supply.”
He cited federal agencies’ adoption of energy efficiency standards this year for new housing backed by government financing. The NAHB’s Kansas City chapter saidthat move would raise metro area prices by more than $31,000 per home while saving only $657 in annual energy costs. Instead, Tobin said the government should ease regulations and leverage federal dollars to encourage zoning reforms.
“In many places it’s too difficult to build, and it’s driving prices up,” Harris acknowledged in North Carolina on Friday. “We will take down barriers and cut red tape, including at the state and local levels,” she said.
The White House has already tried to influence zoning, including through a grant program to municipal governments looking to tweak zoning laws to accommodate more affordable housing. While Zhao agreed funding is “the main pressure” federal policymakers can apply to seek such reforms, she said the administration’s housing efforts so far represent “a lot of nibbling around the edges.”
Zoning rules that restrict construction to single-family homes have become a political flashpoint.
David Ryder / Bloomberg via Getty Images
A Harris campaign spokesperson said she would “continue the fight for affordable housing for all Americans as president, and she’s the perfect candidate to make America’s most notoriously greedy landlord, Donald Trump, a loser again this November.”
A Republican administration, by comparison, might not push for zoning changes.
Trump has vowed to protect single-family zoning to fend off developers and policymakers looking to lower prices by increasing housing density. During his 2020 re-election bid, he accused proponents of threatening to destroy the suburbs by injecting them with low-income residents and “criminals.”
Some housing economists warn against this stance. “If the federal government were going to try to actively protect single-family zoning at the state and local level, it would be bad for housing affordability in those places,” Lincicome said.
Trump has historically flip-flopped on zoning. During his term in office, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson criticized single-family zoning and praised cities that made it easier to build multifamily units. But in the housing chapter Carson wrote for Project 2025 — a policy playbook Trump has disavowed despite long-standing ties with its authors — the former secretary said, “A conservative Administration should oppose any efforts to weaken single-family zoning.”
While Trump recently told Bloomberg he’d ease environmental and permitting rules to lower costs, he promised at a rally this month: “There will be no low-income housing developments in areas that are right next to your house.”
哈里斯与特朗普在住房问题方面走在供需平衡的钢丝上
2024年8月18日
作者：戴维斯·詹吉利奥
降低成本的现实情况让两位竞选人不得不在政治雷区中步步为营——例如功能分区规定和房产价值——以向选民推销缓解住房短缺的方案。
住房问题对选民来说是一个巨大的痛点，但这个问题在总统竞选中刚刚开始脱离边缘化的地位。房地产的复杂政治因素是其中的关键原因。
星期五，美国副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯在她的经济议程中分享了新的住房计划，其中包括帮助困难租户、打击企业房东以及在四年内推动建设300万套新房的努力。
到目前为止，这位民主党候选人提供的住房提案比她的共和党对手、前总统唐纳德·特朗普更为详细。但两人都面临一个长期困扰美国住房政策的政治挑战，而随着住房负担危机的加剧，这一挑战变得越来越棘手：“作为一个国家，我们对住房的期望是既要让其负担得起，又要使其成为一种财富的生成方式，”房地产公司Redfin的经济学负责人Chen Zhao说道。
“问题在于，你无法在不让价格上涨的情况下创造财富，而一旦价格上涨，它就不再负担得起了，”她说。
在抵押贷款利率在最近几个月超过7%之后，终于开始回落，但买房依然困难重重。租金继续压榨数百万租户，住房成本比去年上涨了5%以上，导致一半的租户家庭“负担过重”。与此同时，美国住房市场仍然短缺250万到450万套住房。
“供应是我们必须关注的第一要务，”Chen Zhao说。“我们需要做的主要事情是增加供应，而限制供应增加的主要因素之一——也许是最主要的限制——往往是地方功能分区规定和建筑法规。”
这一现实情况是一个政治雷区。联邦政府对州和市级功能分区的影响有限，而这些功能分区规定可能成为社区层面的焦点争议点。此外，低成本住房可能会降低现有房主的房产价值，这可能会让他们在投票时寻求报复。
因此，或许不难理解为何哈里斯和特朗普都强调在当前供应紧张的市场中降低成本的方式。
哈里斯在星期五提议为首次购房者提供2.5万美元的首付款援助，这超出了拜登-哈里斯政府之前提出的1万美元税收优惠。共和党同样呼吁“通过税收激励促进购房，并支持首次购房者。”
这种政策推动标志着大约四年前开始的转变，并且这一转变还在加剧，全国低收入住房联盟主席兼首席执行官戴安娜·延特尔表示。“在2020年之前，当总统候选人谈论住房问题时，他们总是关注中产阶级的购房问题，”她说。
现在，尤其是民主党人比以往更加优先考虑这个问题，包括“最低收入者的需求，”延特尔说，部分原因是因为危机的“严重性本身”。
特朗普方面曾表示，大规模打击合法和非法移民——包括拘留和驱逐数百万人——将为美国公民腾出住房供应，从而降低房价。但一些经济学家对此结论表示质疑，主要是因为这对新供应的影响：削减建筑行业中大量的外籍劳动力可能会限制住房建设。
“普遍认为，移民限制的净效应是对住房成本施加上行压力，”自由主义倾向的卡托研究所总经济学副总裁斯科特·林西科姆表示。此外，一些分析人士认为，特朗普呼吁加征更高关税可能会推高许多建筑材料的成本，从而阻碍开发。
一位特朗普竞选发言人并未直接回应这些批评，但表示这位前总统“将控制联邦开支，阻止非法移民的不可持续涌入，这正在推高住房成本；为美国家庭减税，消除高昂的监管成本，并释放适当的联邦土地用于住房。”
两党都支持开放更多联邦拥有的土地进行开发，并提出了其他增加供应的想法。星期五，哈里斯提议为“起步房”建设者提供新的税收优惠，扩大对建造可支付租赁房的税收激励，并设立400亿美元基金“以刺激创新住房建设”。
全国房屋建筑商协会（NAHB）首席执行官吉姆·托宾表示，他欢迎通过税收激励措施来推动开发，但他认为仍有太多障碍存在。
“本届政府在这一问题上立场不一致，”他说。“他们一方面谈论增加供应，另一方面又设置了更多阻碍增加供应的障碍。”
他提到联邦机构今年为政府支持的新住房采纳的节能标准。NAHB堪萨斯城分会表示，此举将使该地区每套房屋的价格上涨超过3.1万美元，而每年仅能节省657美元的能源成本。托宾认为，政府应该放宽监管，并利用联邦资金来推动功能分区改革。
“在很多地方，建房的难度太大，这正在推高价格，”哈里斯星期五在北卡罗来纳州承认道。“我们将消除障碍，减少繁文缛节，包括在州和地方层面，”她说。
白宫已经尝试通过一个为市政府提供补助的项目来影响功能分区法规，鼓励他们调整功能分区法律以容纳更多可负担住房。虽然Zhao表示，资金是联邦政策制定者推动此类改革的“主要压力点”，但她也指出，政府目前的住房努力“只是小打小闹”。
哈里斯竞选发言人表示，她将“继续为所有美国人争取可支付住房的斗争，她是让美国最臭名昭著的贪婪房东——唐纳德·特朗普——在今年11月再次失败的完美候选人。”
相比之下，共和党政府可能不会推动功能分区改革。
特朗普誓言要保护单户住宅功能分区，以抵御试图通过增加住房密度来降低价格的开发商和政策制定者。在2020年的连任竞选中，他指责支持者威胁要通过注入低收入居民和“犯罪分子”来摧毁郊区。
一些住房经济学家对此立场提出警告。“如果联邦政府试图在州和地方层面积极保护单户住宅功能分区，这将不利于这些地方的住房负担能力，”林西科姆表示。
特朗普在功能分区问题上的立场一向反复无常。在他任内，HUD部长本·卡森批评了单户住宅功能分区，并赞扬了那些使多户住宅建设更容易的城市。但在卡森为《2025项目》撰写的住房章节中——尽管特朗普与其作者有着长期联系，但他已否认与该政策手册的关联——卡森表示，“保守派政府应反对任何削弱单户住宅功能分区的努力。”
尽管特朗普最近在接受彭博社采访时表示，他将放宽环境和许可规定以降低成本，但他本月在一次集会上承诺：“不会在你家旁边的地区建设低收入住房项目。”
