The biggest house in my neighborhood is owned by a realtor. Custom-built, resembling the Canton Football Hall of fame, and enough lights to be seen from space.
I'm sure he's a nice guy. He drives a neon jeep with his nickname on the side of it (that's one way to write off a $70,000 vehicle).
Last week, I received a letter in my mailbox. It was a analysis of all the home prices in my neighborhood. It was from him, and it included a quote that it's a "Great Time to Sell."
So, I went to his website, where another real estate analyst said that it's a "Great time to Buy."
I was more intrigued by the latter statement. The argument goes that there's less demand, so asking prices might go down if there aren't many suitors. But then there's the other claim...
The one that suggests no one understands economics anymore.
Meanwhile In Chicago
While the U.S. real estate market is under duress, along comes Mayor Johnson. Yesterday, he tweeted that Housing is a Right.
He advocated that Congress should provide a tax credit for more affordable housing development.
Now, I was unaware access to someone else's productivity and labor was a right. But that's the socialist mantra.
I was unaware that tax credits (aka subsidizing) made housing affordable based on the track record of the last 30 years.
I wasn't aware that public housing would be making a comeback in Chicago after the horrors of Cabrini Green and other projects in the city in the 1990s.
And I wasn't aware that the thing to which someone has a right to own should also be taxed at nosebleed levels to fund public sector union pensions... making it - well - unaffordable.
The cognitive dissonance is astounding.
Meanwhile, all government has interfered in the housing market long enough that it's barely even a market. It's a racket.
There are 25,000 regulatory bodies in the United States across the local, municipal, state, and Federal levels that regulate the supply of housing, according to my former client Fannie Mae.
But sure... let's throw more tax credits at the problem, bud.
This is what common sense is up against. Don't think about it too much like I do, or blood will squirt out your nose.
Stay positive,
Garrett Baldwin
Secretary of Finance