The Case Against (Government Subsidization of) Homeownership

I briefly argued on Saturday that public policy bias in favor of homeownership was perhaps a not very good idea. Paul Krugman lays out the argument at greater length today. Clive Crook did an even longer column on this for The Atlantic several months ago. Crook and Krugman are not particularly close to each other ideologically, an indication that this aspect of our policy environment is not motivated by any particularly principled considerations.

Let me just add to this that if you look at homeownership rate by state it's clear that a super-high rate of homeownership is neither a sign of economic vitality nor something that creates economic vitality.