Having overseen a spectacular increase in mortgage rates during her time in Washington, Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris said she wants to make it easier to buy a home, courtesy of the taxpayer.
Harris is announcing Friday that if she is elected she will seek to ram through Congress a proposal to shell out $25,000 in federal money to what it calls working families buying their first home, according to ABC.
Individuals who are the first in their families to buy a home would get even more generous taxpayer-funded handouts.
“Many Americans work hard at their jobs, save, and pay their rent on time month after month. But they can’t save enough after paying their rent and other bills to save for a down payment — denying them a shot at owning a home and building wealth,” the campaign said in a statement.
“As the Harris-Walz plan starts to expand the supply of entry-level homes, they will, during their first term, provide working families who have paid their rent on time for two years and are buying their first home up to $25,000 in down-payment assistance, with more generous support for first-generation homeowners,” the statement said.
Far less rosy language flowed on X.
won’t that just increase the price of all homes by $25,000 while also increasing the deficit https://t.co/F4VgpA1e1K
— Whole Mars Catalog (@WholeMarsBlog) August 16, 2024
The plan? Reduce prices by increasing demand. https://t.co/adHwY81DGV pic.twitter.com/V4nevP1uBK
— Jarvis (@jarvis_best) August 16, 2024
Do you think Kamala Harris has any idea how supply and demand works?
The Harris campaign is suggesting the same subprime mortgage structure that caused the 2008 crisis, except at a higher cost to tax payers, and WILL cause inflation of pricing. https://t.co/JuLT430mmr
— California Redacted 🇺🇲 (@CARedacted) August 16, 2024
One poster noted the real-world consequences of all that money floating about.
“If five people are bidding on a house, and each of them receives an extra $25,000 to tack on to their offer, four people walk away without a house and one pays a higher price than if you’d given none of them any money. Unserious policy,” David Murphy posted on X.
A September 2023 survey from real estate data provider ATTOM said the major obstacle to buying a home was the cost of a mortgage, according to CBS.
Harris offers a $25k handout to first-time homebuyers — what a goof! Biden/Harris blow up the budget with handouts, giving us inflation and high mortgage rates — and now Harris wants to compensate with more handouts! How stupid does she think Americans are?
— David P. Goldman (@davidpgoldman) August 16, 2024
The Harris proposal comes at a time when, according to a statement on the website of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, “The monthly mortgage payment for a median priced new home has increased by $970 and is 85 percent higher than when President Biden and Vice President Harris took office in January 2021.”
“Under the Biden-Harris Administration, prices are 20 percent higher, paychecks don’t cover as much, and buying a house is now a luxury even fewer can afford. None of these failures would be possible without Vice President Harris,” Smith said.
A fact sheet from the House Budget Committee noted, “In January 2021, the average interest rate on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage was 2.7 percent — a record low. It is now 6.4 percent, an increase of 3.7 percentage points.”
“The average sales price of a home has also gotten more expensive during the Biden Administration, increasing from $403,900 to $516,500,” the fact sheet said.
