US Election: The American housing dream

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2024

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As prices for homes and rents continue to rise in many towns and cities, it's one of the key issues for voters.

In 2023 the average price of a home in the United States was $495,100, six per cent higher than a year earlier, though the signs are prices may now be starting to fall.

That’s partly because mortgage rates have spiralled as high as 7% for many new buyers – making repayments prohibitive.

We ask business owners working in housing to tell us why, and what’s the fix?

Presenter: Ed Butler Producer: David Cann

(Image: A "Now Leasing" sign outside the Willows at Valley Run, an affordable housing development, in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi there, I'm Ed Butler. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. As we build towards
0:06.8	the US election, we're looking at some of the top economic concerns now affecting Americans.
0:12.8	Beginning with the housing market, for many, the cost of a home is beginning to feel ever more out of
0:18.3	reach. And there's no way I can buy like the cheapest house.
0:22.7	I mean, today it's insane.
0:24.0	It's going to get to a point that people can buy a home.
0:26.5	Yes, polls indicate that rising rents and house prices are a leading concern for US voters.
0:32.9	Today, business owners working in housing tell us why it's so hard to fix.
0:38.1	There is a difficulty when you have the political parties divided.
0:41.9	You don't have a lot of bipartisanship going on right now.
0:44.8	That's really what is needed to solve the housing crisis.
0:48.1	If you show a presidential candidate the housing market,
0:52.1	it's like showing a German shepherd a card trick. They appear to be
0:55.1	really engaged, but they have no clue what you're talking about. The pain of making the housing market
1:00.0	work in the U.S. That's Business Daily from the BBC.
1:05.9	The economy is lousy, but when the economy gets better, it's hard to get better when you have high
1:11.7	energy prices. But if and when it gets better...
1:14.6	Donald Trump, himself, a billionaire property developer, likes to talk about the housing market.
1:20.3	We'll get the prices way down, and then we'll get the interest rates down, and then the
1:24.0	home builders are going to start to build again because they've stopped, because nobody can
1:27.4	get money from a bank. Nobody can borrow money because the interest rates are so high.
1:32.8	The Republican candidate has been damning about the Democrats' handling of the economy.
	...

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