POLITICS: Will House Prices Decide the Election?

A new study has found that the cost of homes could sway voters when they cast their ballots

- GIULIA CARBONARO

SOARING HOME PRICES ACROSS THE U.S. HAVE strained affordability, squeezing many aspiring buyers out of the market and pushing both Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump to promise they'd do something if elected to lower the cost of purchasing a property.

But rising prices have also meant that millions of homeowners in the country have seen the value of their properties grow in the past few years an appreciation that might push them to vote for Harris in November, according to a first-of-its-kind study.

In "Housing Performance and the Electorate," a study published in early 2023, researchers analyzed home prices and election results at a nationwide level over each of the last six presidential elections, seeking to find out how the country's "largest asset class, residential real estate" influenced individual voter behavior.

The initial idea was that homeowners tend to vote for the candidate who supports policies that are perceived as beneficial to their property value.

What was found was that homeowners in counties where prices had climbed in the four years before an election were more likely to "vote-switch" to the incumbent party. Counties with poorer price performance, on the other hand, were more likely to vote for the challenging party.

Home price changes influenced voters' behavior more in swing counties in seven battleground states-Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

At the time the study was published, it meant LIA ONARO that-based on the study's results alone -homeowners in battleground states were more likely to vote for President Joe Biden in November. Now that Biden has withdrawn from the race and Harris has replaced him as the Democratic nominee, this same theory might weigh in favor of the vice president.