Biden’s Housing Tax Breaks Are a Start, Not a Silver Bullet
The way to fix America’s affordability crisis is to build more homes. The president’s proposal might help in the meantime.
Build more.
Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg
In many ways, the housing market couldn’t be more miserable for first-time buyers. Mortgage rates and home prices have made monthly payments prohibitively high. And even if buyers can scrape the funds together, there’s very little existing-home inventory to choose from. President Joe Biden’s remedy? A series of proposed tax credits that, among other things, seek to cushion the blow for first-time and trade-up buyers. In his fiery State of the Union speech on Thursday, Biden laid out part of the plan:
Digging into the details in a White House fact sheet, Biden would push for legislation to give first-time middle-class buyers a $5,000 credit for two years. He also wants a one-year, $10,000 tax credit for “middle-class families who sell their starter homes,” provided that the properties are priced below the median price in their area and sold to another owner-occupant.