Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will face off in their first presidential debate against each other Tuesday night.
This election year, housing has come up as a major concern for voters across the U.S., and Central Florida is no exception. Those concerns have both candidates focusing on the issue.
According to the Florida Housing Coalition’s Home Matters report last month, there’s a housing crisis with more than 2.4 million families in Florida considered to be “cost burdened,” meaning more than 30% of their income is spent on just rent and utilities. Of those families, 1.3 million are considered “severely cost burdened,” meaning they spend at least half of their income just to keep a roof over their heads with power and running water.
“Florida still has a housing affordability crisis,” the FHC report said. “Record high housing costs threaten the safety and well-being of Floridians. Now, more than ever, Florida needs the effective proliferation of federal, state, and local solutions.”
The reason for this housing crisis is multipronged:
- Supply and demand — Post-COVID, a “turbulent” housing market left real estate agents with a lagging housing supply that could not meet the demands of a simultaneously and quickly increasing population.
- Inflation hit record highs — This imbalance caused a strain in what was already a tight housing market in Central Florida, resulting in some of the highest inflation in the nation, which is reflected in increasing property taxes and insurance premiums for homeowners, as well as the highest mortgage prices and interest rates in 20 years, according to Orlando Regional Realtor Association reports.
And it’s had devastating results:
- Renters are not spared — This crisis also affects Central Florida renters, with the Orlando Metro area hosting some of the nation’s costliest rent prices and local courts seeing the highest number of eviction filings in a decade.
- Food insecurity — A survey shows the cost of living increase has put some Central Floridians in a precarious position, with many families and individuals having to choose between paying their bills or buying groceries. The study shows this has affected people’s health and that food insecurity correlates with housing insecurity.
- Homelessness is growing — At the same time, the Homeless Services Network reported that the unsheltered homelessness count more than doubled in the past year.
To tackle housing problems, both 2024 presidential candidates have put forth their plans to lower housing costs, increase housing supply, and reduce the cost of living for Americans. And while each of the proposals have striking differences, they share some ideas.
Where they agree
Both Harris and Trump have said that increasing the housing supply is key. The candidates also agree on using federal land to do so. Tax incentives for developers and grants for first-time homebuyers are another area where there’s agreement.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ plan
On the Democrats' side, the sitting vice president wants to offer more federal relief, such as tax credits and grants. Harris has also promised to build “3 million new homes” during her presidency. Her plan to lower living costs includes tax incentives, such as plans to have the first-ever tax incentive to build starter homes, curtailing corporate buying of single-family homes, and “ending rent-setting collusion” among corporate landlords.
Former President Donald Trump’s plan
On the Republican’s side, the former president's housing strategy includes mainly lowering inflation and reducing regulations on the local and state levels. Trump’s plan proposes mainly deregulation, migrant deportation and strengthening of U.S. borders, claiming that "luxury housing" and tax benefits for migrants are causing high home prices and living costs, and taking a strong “peace" stance geopolitically to limit war, which the proposal said costs billions and drives inflation.
The local impact
Central Florida Public Media Housing and Homelessness Reporter Lillian Hernández Caraballo interviewed two local economists to get their take on how these policies might be felt in Florida and in our own communities.
“It truly is a supply problem, and I don't know if either candidate has a magic bullet to address that,” said Sean Snaith, director of University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Forecasting.
Federal vs Local
Overall, Snaith said lowering regulations might play out better in the end than offering more federal assistance. He said regulations basically serve the same function as taxes do on an industry and, in this case, can often hold back the development process.
“I think it will propose a challenge to solve this at the federal level because many of the hurdles and challenges of building new housing units happen at the state and even local levels,” he said. “Going from a plan for a community to actually having housing units coming out of the ground can take years — not one or two, it could take 10 years. We have a housing shortage now; houses in 10 years aren't going to help us today.”
Federal solutions not working quickly enough to address the urgent need now is one part of Snaith’s analysis. The other part is that it could actually end up hurting more than helping.
“The notion of giving down payment assistance to first time homebuyers, or to homebuyers in general, is just going to boost demand and is going to make the price problem worse. We don't have a demand problem,” Snaith said. “The focus on any of these plans should be to streamline the process in terms of the time it takes to go through all the steps and jump through hoops to get approval for development. We know no two places are alike, and they all have different needs and concerns, but really the bottom line is, supply needs to be bolstered.”
Not in my backyard
Snaith is referring to the public process at the municipal level, when leaders and developers must get through residents’ feedback, land use regulations, and other hurdles to get affordable housing or new construction approved. In Brevard County, the Melbourne City Council approved an affordable complex against local protests that were deemed “NIMBYism” by the mayor, and a similar situation happened in Orange County when the commission approved Disney’s affordable housing project in March.
“I saw this in California, too — this sort of, ‘not in my backyard’ rhetoric, people who say, ‘Yes, we need housing, but not here.’ So, I’m not entirely sure what powers the federal government can bring to this, but anything I think that can shorten the time from idea to livable housing units is a big part of the solution here,” Snaith said.
Henry “Hank” Fishkind is an Orlando-based economist with over 30 years of experience in economic analysis and forecasting. He agreed with Snaith that increasing demand and providing more financing doesn't resolve the obstacles imposed by zoning and land use regulations.
The double-edged sword
“Tax incentives and credits are a step in the right direction and promote more supply, which is where our problem is, is on the supply side, but they're not a cure all,” Fishkind said. “[Tax incentives] reduce tax revenue. There's some offset by the increase in economic activity, but, yes, it does increase the deficits.”
However, he said he saw strong and weak points to both the candidates’ approaches and that, regardless of who wins, the housing industry will have to learn to work with a new boss.
“There's things to like and dislike in both of the platforms,” Fishkind said. “The market will make the adjustments as best it can.”
Florida’s Live Local Act
Fishkind said things could play out interestingly in Florida thanks to efforts in “significant reform” like the Live Local Act, a comprehensive and far-reaching workforce housing law that, in many cases, has been able to preempt certain local governments’ regulations and restrictions on land use to increase development.
“Florida did something very interesting with the Live Local Act,” he said. “There's been a lot of pushback on that, but that's the kind of thing to reduce regulatory blocks at the local level, which are very significant in restricting the supply of housing.”
The Live Local Act was leveraged last year by a company called Eastwind Developers to approve the building of a new multifamily housing complex just east of UCF. However, the Florida Legislature recently approved changes, as municipalities across the state and in Central Florida called for moratoriums on development, claiming the new law is negatively affecting their communities, overloading local infrastructure and, ultimately, falling on taxpayers.
Deportation of migrants
On deportation, both economists said that the reduction of any group of people, not just immigrants, would consequently decrease demand. While this would be helpful in any scenario, Fishkind said it is not only unlikely but could also have unintended and negative consequences.
“If [Trump] really carries through with calling out the Army to deport 10 million people, it could be extremely disruptive to the economy. Will housing markets completely shut down? No; but certainly there would be substantial disruption, like major increases in labor costs. So, that's potentially worse than if such a policy would carry through on the Democratic side increasing tax incentives,” he said.
According to Fishkind, both approaches need to address the problem with coherent, meaningful solutions, with marginal impact on the deficit and housing markets.
While both economists agreed, the current situation is unmistakably due to a “housing market failure,” they each gave different analyses for what drove this.
Inflation and mortgage rates
Fishkind said it’s because the supply is being restricted. Snaith said it was a direct result of COVID-19 policies that halted economic production and growth.
On lowering inflation, while both economists said that more affordable mortgages for Americans is an obvious part of the solution, Snaith said that still won’t help increase supply.
“Lower inflation helps affordability, but it doesn't make any more homes,” Snaith said. “When housing collapsed in 2008, Florida was one of the states that was hit particularly hard. We saw prices drop by nearly 50% for single family homes, and this meant an end to some developing companies that did not survive it. “And so, we’ve had fewer builders as a result of that, and then, moving forward, those building companies that survived this terrible housing crisis remained cautious for many years.”
Corporate landlords and wars overseas
Again in agreement, both economists called out corporate collusion to manipulate any market as illegal and harmful to the market — one of Harris’ key takedowns.
In August, the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against RealPage for allegedly scheming to decrease competition among landlords in apartment pricing and to monopolize the market for commercial revenue. Florida’s attorney general has not joined the lawsuit.
But when it came down to the Republican’s idea for geopolitical stability to lower inflation, the economists did not see eye to eye.
While Snaith would like to see an end to war and military overspending, Fishkind said it’s ultimately not a significant driver for the American economy.
“The problem is that, as big as the amounts of money are —that we are spending in Ukraine and in Israel and other countries on foreign aid— as big as that number is, it's relatively small in the context of the U.S. budget, and it's relatively small in the context of the U.S. economy. So, yes, we'd all like geopolitical peace. Yes, it would make a marginal contribution. No, it's not going to lower mortgage rates and stimulate housing,” Fishkind said.
Central Floridians will have a chance to watch Harris and Trump battle out their philosophies on how to best turn housing and the economy during their first presidential debate Tuesday night. Central Florida Public Media will air the debate live and NPR will offer analysis after.
Lillian Hernández Caraballo is a Report for America corps member.
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