Time to Rethink Homeownership Preferences

Several months ago, I was sitting at our dining room table and thought I heard raindrops while my husband was showering. Turns out I was hearing water running down the inside of a wall from a pipe that had been leaking for some time.

So parts of the pipe had to be replaced, of course. Also the rotted drywall, plus an unrotted portion that the plumbers had sawed out. And the whole dining room-living room area had to be repainted because the new drywall would otherwise look lighter.

Got me to thinking about costs of homeownership we don’t read much about — and more generally, about how our public policies tend to push people toward a housing choice that, for many, may be personally unsuitable and/or financially imprudent.

Consider, for example, the federal income tax code. People who sign on to a mortgage get to deduct the interest they pay, plus “points,” i.e., upfront interest that cuts the mortgage rate. Also what they pay in real property taxes.

These are fine examples of  “upside down” tax policies — so called because they deliver the most to those who need it least.

High-earners get the largest deductions because their top tax bracket is higher and they generally buy costlier houses.

Also multiple houses. And they can take interest deductions on the first $1 million they owe for two of them.

Low-income filers who’ve managed to get a home loan get a much smaller tax benefit — less than $100, on average, from the mortgage interest deduction, according to a Center for American Progress brief.

In many cases, this cuts their tax liability less than the standard deduction they can take instead. Which one reason some economists say that the mortgage interest deduction doesn’t promote homeownership — only the purchase of costlier homes.

There’s, of course, no tax preference at all for people who indirectly pay mortgage interest and property taxes as a portion of their rent.

And they generally can’t deduct interest on other debt they incur, except for student loans.

Homeowners who borrow against their equity can — interest on as much as $100,000-worth of debt, no matter what they use the money for.

These policies don’t spring out of nowhere. Owning a home is a key element of the American Dream.

We pay more than twice as much to support it, through the tax code, as for all programs administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, CAP says. And the Center’s talking only about the mortgage interest deduction.

This deduction alone cost the federal government an estimated $140.5 billion last year — more than any other tax expenditure except the exclusion of employer-provided health insurance from what the Internal Revenue Services counts as income.

So there’s a good fiscal argument for blowing away the homeownership preferences — if not altogether while our economy in general and the housing market in particular are still so shaky, then when our recovery seems reasonably secure.

But I think there’s a broader argument as well.

Homeownership is fine for those who can afford it — not only the mortgage, the insurance and the taxes, but the unexpected expenses like leaking pipes and fires.

Fine for those who are quite certain they want to sink roots in one place — and can uproot if they need to, even if housing prices fall.

But we can have secure, stable communities and residents who engage in civic activities, go to PTA meetings, etc. without distorting housing choice incentives, though interested parties say otherwise.

We read that younger people aren’t embracing homeownership the way they used to. Perhaps, as some experts suggest, we’re witnessing “the creation of a generation of renters” — and thus a partial redefinition of the American Dream.

I think this would be a healthy thing for individuals, communities and our society as a whole.

Surely it would be healthy to rebalance public policies and our collective narrative of middle-class success so that signing a lease becomes every bit as good as signing a mortgage contract.