OPINION:
The recent news from the housing industry is that if you have cash, you can buy anything you want. But if you are a mortgage buyer, the market has hardly ever been so out of reach.
The industry used to say it was all about the neighborhood, but today it is about interest rates. We hear that there is a shortage of housing, but there is plenty of very nice housing that is occupied by older people who would love to downsize but cannot begin to think about the higher interest rate required to do so.
As soon as there is an interest rate that is within reach, I believe there will be plenty of builders who will be loaded up with work. Our economy is not firing on all cylinders; that is all there is to it. If you talk to bankers who loan money to communities and businesses across the country, they will all tell you the same thing.
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If cars are not being sold, real estate is stagnant and there is no residential construction going on, then we do not have a full economy, only an economy in which the wealthy are still spending.
But this is not about the wealthy vs. the regular folks. It is about interest rates that President Trump has done everything but stand on his head to get down.
In the long term, higher interest rates are a direct reflection of the fear of lenders that we will return to a Biden-type economy with uncontrolled spending. If affordability is a real concern in the upcoming election, how could anyone vote for a democratic socialist, given all the additional spending that party has in mind?
The only way to return to a full economy is to have Republican victories and a continuation of sound energy policies, immigration control and efforts to reduce the total fiscal burden of social programs like Medicare on our government.
H.S. ROBINSON
Columbia, South Carolina
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