🇺🇸 2028 Presidential Campaign 🇺🇸 tldr; Make housing more affordable by eliminating the attributes that make a house a financial instrument instead of a home.
Americans struggle to buy a home because real estate has been blessed by the Federal Government as a privileged asset class. Housing should be a utility, not a financial instrument. In the United States, real estate attracts massive institutional investments (which outbid the working class) because it's difficult for investors to lose in real estate. Here's how the real estate game is rigged for investors:
- Leverage your money 20x on a multi-decade loan - Lower your taxes from the interest on the loan - Have the working class pay the loan for you via rent - Wait for other investors to put more money into real estate to cause the prices to rise - Use the real estate as collateral to borrow money to fund a luxury lifestyle, or - Use a rule that only exists for real estate (1031 Exchange) that allows you to sell a piece of real estate at a massive profit (remember 20x leverage) and pay zero capital gains tax as long as you use the proceeds to invest in a bigger property - Use another rules that allows you to take a depreciation loss on an asset that is appreciating, to never pay tax on any income - Repeat until you have a billion dollar balance sheet that cash flows that you never did, and never will, get taxed on
The Government shouldn't pick winners and losers or create unnatural market conditions, but it has, which causes unintended consequences. Kill the 1031 exchange, kill mortgage interest deductions, kill depreciation tax loss, kill capital gains tax for all asset classes. #2028