Where we CONTINUE to go WRONG on Affordable Housing

[Logan M.]

What people don't realize when it comes to affordable housing is that government policies from the top down have destroyed our housing market.

At the national level, we thought that creating government-backed loans would make it more affordable which is true when there is enough inventory otherwise too many people start chasing too few homes. 

At the state level, they utilize tax money to create affordable housing grants in the form of preferred lending, grants, guarantees, and tax credits which make the process of applying so elusive only the biggest players can take advantage thus providing great opportunities for the rich to become even richer.

At the local level zoning laws, impact fees, bonding, and preconstruction paperwork make the building extremely costly. For example, I have a situation where a city wants a bond but in reality, they want to hold onto a large sum of money until the project is complete. 

I understand the purpose of all of these pieces but like most poorly run parts of our government, we now have a huge bureaucracy making every step of the building process extremely expensive.

A few of our local governments lost a lawsuit a few years back for charging roughly 10% of the property cost as an impact fee, the government is the problem causing our affordable housing crisis.