Secret #70 - What You Can Do to Increase Home Ownership

The lobbying efforts of the National Association of Realtors are a major force behind U.S. landlord tax breaks on single-family houses and condos, tax breaks that help keep the U.S. home ownership rate unusually low.

If you want to increase U.S. home ownership and, especially, increase U.S. free-and-clear home ownership, before you to talk to your local, state and national politicians, you can start by calling, emailing or texting your favorite local Realtor and asking them why the National Association of Realtors fights so hard for landlord tax breaks that, mathematically, MUST lower the home ownership rate for people like you. (They may say it's to provide housing to renters but really it's to provide commissions to Realtors who represent landlords, and for the Realtors who are landlords.)

Landlord tax breaks do NOT lower rents, they increase landlord profits and landlord purchases of single-family houses and condos, which lowers the U.S. home ownership rate. 

When interest rates fell dramatically in 2019 and 2020 to record low levels, landlord mortgage interest expenses also fell dramatically. Did landlords lower their rents? No! Landlords increased their rents DRAMATICALLY in 2020 and 2021 despite their dramatically lower mortgage interest costs.

Ask your favorite agent how you can find a real estate agent next time to help you buy or sell a house who isn’t associated with the National Association of Realtors and therefore fighting against home ownership in the United States. Ask them if they contribute any money to any Realtor political action committees.

Ask them why the U.S. home ownership rate ranks so low among developed countries. The U.S. ranks #20 out of the 28 countries shown in Secret #1. 

Ask them why so few U.S. home owners own their homes free-and-clear compared to other developed countries. The U.S. ranks #26 out of the 28 countries shown… that is, the U.S. is the third worst in free-and-clear home ownership on that list. 

I suspect most real estate agents who are members of the National Association of Realtors do NOT support the association’s lobbying that lowers home ownership. Unfortunately, I think the agents for landlords took control of NAR’s lobbying efforts somewhere along the line.

Ask your agent if they can get the National Association of Realtors to fight for more live-in home ownership instead of fighting for more landlord ownership and less live-in home ownership.

The National Association of Realtors is one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the United States. They created this mess of very high family mortgage debt and relatively low home ownership. They could help fix it if they wanted to. But they don’t want to.