Harris and Trump want to build more housing. What would that mean for Pa.?

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Lilah Saber started thinking about buying a home in Philadelphia shortly after she moved to the area for college roughly 10 years ago.

With no generational wealth or family inheritance coming her way, she knew it couldn’t happen immediately. But she figured at some point she’d be earning enough to buy, given Philly’s relative affordability.

“In the back of my mind, it was always, ‘Philly is a place that I could build a life, and invest in and live in permanently.’ And I want to do that not just as a renter but as a homeowner,” said Saber during a recent interview in West Philadelphia.

Nearly a decade later, Saber is far less hopeful about finding a path to homeownership. She still wants to put down roots in the city, but like many first-time homebuyers, she’s struggling to find a house she can afford. Most of the time, they’re either way out of her price range or require a lot of renovation work.

Either way, saving $10,000 or more for a down payment feels Herculean.

“I look at the estimate for the mortgage payment and say, ‘That’s the exact same I’m paying in rent.’ And then I do the math for not even an adequate downpayment … and say, ‘I just don’t have that in the bank and I’m not gonna have that in the bank in a year,’” said Saber, the Philadelphia organizing director at POWER Interfaith.

‘Supply and demand’

For the past two years, home buying has remained exceedingly difficult for people with low-to-moderate incomes. Many have scaled back their housing search, while others have completely abandoned the idea of homeownership, at least for the foreseeable future.

The problem is most acute in big urban centers, especially in the Midwest and Northeast regions of the country. But would-be homebuyers are being squeezed coast to coast, as overvalued home prices and high mortgage rates continue to create an affordability crisis often exacerbated by a lack of inventory.

Part of the issue is rooted in market conditions — the fact that many homeowners are staying put instead of selling because they can’t afford a new place with a higher mortgage rate. However, the country’s affordability crisis is also very much shaped by a deeper dilemma: the U.S. housing shortage.

It’s why economists — and now both candidates running for president — say it’s critical the country find a way to build more housing. The national deficit hit 4.5 million homes in 2022, according to real estate giant Zillow.

“It’s supply and demand,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “If you get more supply, that reduces the price of whatever you’re increasing the supply of.”

As of 2021, the Philadelphia metro area — which includes the suburbs and places like Camden and Wilmington — was short nearly 80,000 homes, according to a report released last year by Up For Growth, a national nonprofit “committed to solving the housing shortage and affordability crisis through data-driven research.” As of 2021, Pennsylvania was short nearly 100,000 homes, the report states.

The same data showed the deficit for the Philly metro region was roughly 7,500 homes in 2012.

The overwhelming majority of these missing homes are in the southeastern portion of the state, which includes Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs, as well as places like Reading and Lancaster.

The shortage reflects a need to build new units but also to invest in renovating existing ones before they become inhabitable. Pennsylvania has one of the oldest housing stocks in the country. As of 2022, the median age of housing was 57 years old, according to the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency.

“We’re at a really staggering level of unaffordability across the state and the only way to really address that is through addressing our housing supply gap,” said Vincent Reina, founder of the Housing Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania.

Policy in action

Housing experts like Reina are encouraged that affordability is part of the national conversation for the first time in decades. And they say federal policy can help close Pennsylvania’s housing shortage — especially if it’s paired with local buy-in and local reforms to the regulatory landscape, particularly when it comes to new development.

For example, Vice President Kamala Harris wants to provide tax incentives to developers to build starter homes — homes priced at the bottom third of a given market that often have thin profit margins. The goal is to generate more affordable housing by making starter homes more attractive to developers beset by high construction costs and a pool of buyers hindered by high mortgage rates.

Philadelphia developer Mohamed “Mo” Rushdy said the idea could have a big impact if local governments streamline the permitting process for starter homes.

“Lower margins can be acceptable when the projects are done in shorter time frames because if I can cycle faster I’ll still make the same … because I can do two projects instead of one project,” said Rushdy, managing partner of the Riverwards Group and president of the Building Industry Association of Philadelphia.

Some housing advocates say the national spotlight could also help advance local efforts to grow the state’s housing supply, including an ongoing push to implement a statewide zoning code.

Every municipality in Pennsylvania has its own set of rules dictating what types of housing are permitted by-right and what projects require a variance — permission to deviate from the law — to move forward. These regulations can essentially bar certain developments from being built. In general, single-family homes are heavily favored over small apartment buildings, including duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes.

The Pennsylvania Housing Choices Coalition says that’s contributing to the state’s housing shortage. It’s why the bipartisan group is urging legislators to make zoning more uniform. Two bills are now moving through the General Assembly.

“There’s really no state requirements to grow the housing supply. There are very few constraints on what municipal governments can do to ban certain types of housing,” said Jon Geeting, a senior advisor with 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, one of the 40-plus groups that are part of the bipartisan coalition.

A brighter future?

Regardless of the mechanism, cutting the state’s housing gap will likely have wide-ranging economic impacts.

In addition to lowering housing costs, more inventory would mean more taxpayer dollars for the municipality where the construction takes place. Advocates say it would also make it easier for businesses to attract and retain talent.

In this market, some employees are leaving their positions if they’re unable to afford to buy a home in the area, said Renee Androckitis, regional manager of advocacy for the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia.

The issue even comes up with prospective employees during the interview process.

“That’s a problem for young or diverse talent attraction and retention. But it’s also a problem for those more community-centric roles. Think teachers, nurses, police, firefighters,” said Androckitis.

For now, Lilah Saber is staying put — at her job and in the apartment she’s renting in West Philly.

She scans Zillow listings about once a week, hoping to find a property that presents a realistic opportunity to buy a home. But she usually walks away discouraged and disappointed.

Saber grew up in a working-class home and was always encouraged to make a better life for herself. And in a lot of ways she feels like she has. She went to college. She got a job with a middle-class salary.

And yet a big piece — the promise of homeownership — is missing.

Saber hopes that changes after the election in November.

“This is not the story I was told about where I would be,” said Saber.