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Tag: Housing affordability

Fed Rate Hike Could Squeeze Homebuyers and Renters in Southern Colorado
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KKTV 11, Approved, Local

Fed Rate Hike Could Squeeze Homebuyers and Renters in Southern Colorado

By Damien Bartonek | KKTV 11 News COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) - A quarter-point increase in interest rates from the Federal Reserve could make it more expensive for some El Paso County residents to buy a home, while adding pressure to an already strained rental market according to housing experts. Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh said inflation remains too high and that recent data have not shown enough improvement to change the central bank’s approach. “The plain fact is that inflation is too high and has been for too long,” Warsh said. “This summer’s inflation readings do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved.” The Federal Reserve says the rate increase is intended to help bring inflation back toward its 2% target. ...
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Prop 123 pledged 10,000 units a year. Colorado is nowhere close.
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Prop 123 pledged 10,000 units a year. Colorado is nowhere close.

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Where's that Prop 123 money going? Hint: not all of it to new housing! Per the first link below, Prop 123 was a new tax** passed by voters in 2022 which went into a dedicated fund to provide money for "affordable housing" efforts. Screenshots 1a and 1b are from the state's Prop 123 "About" page. They give an overview of the measure along with a list of legislative changes since its passage respectively.  If you want to see the bills, you obviously can't click on a picture, so use the link below to research more about legislative changes to Prop 123 (see also "Related" below).Whether you voted for Prop 123 and/or support the idea, it's worth the time to go and check where that new tax money has g...
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Denver Chamber CEO Says One-Party Rule Is Making Colorado Harder to Live and Do Business In
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Colorado Public Radio, Approved, State

Denver Chamber CEO Says One-Party Rule Is Making Colorado Harder to Live and Do Business In

By Ryan Warner | Colorado Public Radio Colorado is getting in its own way, and Democratic Socialists will only exacerbate the problem, according to the head of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce. J.J. Ament believes one-party rule in Colorado means business owners are bombarded with regulation. “In each of the last two years, more than 500 new laws were introduced in the state of Colorado. No citizen, resident, small business person can keep up with that pace of change,” he said. Ament cited as examples local minimum wage ordinances and what he believes is an inflexible state family leave program. “We're certainly seeing a decline in our economic competitiveness. If you measure since 2019, we've sometimes seen as many as a thousand businesses leave the 80202 [...
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Greg Lopez Puts People Over Parties in Unaffiliated Bid for Colorado Governor
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KJCT-TV ABC 8, Approved, State

Greg Lopez Puts People Over Parties in Unaffiliated Bid for Colorado Governor

By Brianna Chappie | KJCT The unaffiliated-party nominee spoke with KKCO prior to his campaign stop in Clifton for Saturday evening. GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KJCT) - In KJCT’s continuing coverage of Colorado’s gubernatorial race, reporter Brianna Chappie spoke with unaffiliated-party nominee candidate, Greg Lopez, ahead of his campaign visit on Saturday. Lopez is an air force veteran, and seasoned politician— having served as mayor for the town of Parker, a Colorado Director for the Small Business Administration (SBA) and recently as a House Representative for Colorado’s 4th Congressional District. But now, instead of running as a Republican, Lopez is unaffiliated. “I didn’t leave the Republican party because all Republicans are bad or the Democrats are a...
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Colorado Governor Debate Draws Sharp Divide on Gun Rights, Housing Costs, and Peters Commutation
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Colorado Governor Debate Draws Sharp Divide on Gun Rights, Housing Costs, and Peters Commutation

By Deborah Grigsby | Colorado Politics Two of the candidates for Colorado governor squared off in a televised debate on Thursday night, when Attorney General Phil Weiser, the Democratic nominee, and former U.S. Rep. Greg Lopez, an unaffiliated candidate, delved into issues of affordability, data center regulation and gun laws. The debate’s tone was civil. The policy differences between the two were palpable. Both candidates called out Republican nominee Victor Marx, a ministry leader and first-time candidate who declined to participate in the debate On housing, Weiser argued that building more “starter” homes and lowering the barriers to buying them is the right approach. Along with bumping Colorado’s supply of owner-occupied housing by 40,000 by 2035, he proposed c...
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Aspen Realtor Running for Congress Campaigns on Housing Affordability While Selling Luxury Homes
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The Washington Free Beacon, Approved, State

Aspen Realtor Running for Congress Campaigns on Housing Affordability While Selling Luxury Homes

By Ethan Barton | Washington Free Beacon Dwayne Romero, whose own house is worth up to $25 million, has accused 'Wall Street behemoths' of driving up rent while holding positions with BlackRock, Blackstone, and Airbnb. The Democratic nominee for Colorado's Third Congressional District, Dwayne Romero, has made housing affordability a tent-pole issue for his campaign, accusing "Wall Street behemoths" of "buying up homes and driving up rents." Yet, for years, his real estate firm has made big money selling multimillion-dollar luxury homes in Aspen, where residential property is so expensive that even the city's doctors and lawyers can't afford to live. Romero also holds stakes in BlackRock, Blackstone, and Airbnb, his personal financial disclosure shows. Romero t...
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Why deportations are only part of the affordability answer
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TownHall.com, Approved, Commentary, National

Why deportations are only part of the affordability answer

By Dmitri Bolt | Commentary, Townhall AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent argued on Thursday that mass deportations are already improving Americans’ economic circumstances. He pointed to a tightening labor market, rising wages for working-class Americans following the departure of more than one million illegal immigrants from the workforce, and reduced pressure on rents as fewer illegal immigrants compete for jobs and housing. However, it is important to remember that these problems existed long before illegal immigration reached its current scale, and they will remain long after, if we do not strike at the root of the affordability issue. "Things are getting better. We're seeing construction jobs picking up. We're seeing manufactu...
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Did illegal immigration drive up housing prices? A cautious yes with caveats
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, National

Did illegal immigration drive up housing prices? A cautious yes with caveats

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Does an influx of immigrants (illegal or otherwise) drive up house prices? The answer to that question, as with many things in life, is complicated. A guarded, and cautious “yes” with plenty of caveats would be how I’d characterize it; if you introduce millions of people into a place, how can their presence not up demand? This is all the more so for a commodity like housing which has much higher connections to regulation and government than, say, cellphones. Simply looking at the spike in immigration post-COVID ought to convince any reasonable person that demand for housing would increase. See screenshot 1 (from the first link below) for a time series graph. In order to look into this question myself, I di...
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New Study Finds Government Taxes and Fees Add Tens Of Thousands To Colorado Home Prices
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, Commentary, State

New Study Finds Government Taxes and Fees Add Tens Of Thousands To Colorado Home Prices

By Peter Lifari | Commentary, The Denver Gazette Colorado’s economic competitiveness is slipping, and housing affordability is one of the most important reasons why. Policymakers have more control over this than they might think.   A new report from the Common Sense Institute details tens of thousands of dollars in housing-construction costs created not by land or water scarcity, labor costs, materials costs, market conditions or interest rates — but by nothing more than policy.  Housing affordability is as much an economic development and competitiveness issue as it is a social one. That matters in a state tracking business establishment losses and domestic migration losses.  This is a relatively new development for Colorado. For years, the ...
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Colorado Homeownership Slips Further Out of Reach as Prices Outpace Incomes
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The Coloradoan, Approved, State

Colorado Homeownership Slips Further Out of Reach as Prices Outpace Incomes

By Nate Trela | The Coloradoan A new study on homeownership shows just how unaffordable buying a home is across the country, including two Colorado metro areas where homebuying is out of reach for most of their residents even if mortgage rates were set to 0%. The report using data .from Ziffy.ai, an AI-powered real estate investment platform, included the Boulder and Grand Junction areas among dozens of examples of markets where more than half of the homes are unaffordable for most households, even if mortgages did not require paying interest. The analysis defines affordability as when the total monthly housing costs — principal, interest, taxes and insurance — are no more than 30% of the median household income in a market. It based the mortgage calculations...
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