There is a growing realization happening across Central Florida, and honestly across much of America: normal hardworking people can no longer afford to own homes in the communities they grew up in. And while politicians love to reduce this issue down to simplistic slogans, the truth is the housing crisis is far more complicated than most people are willing to admit.
Some politicians say we just need to “build more housing.” Others, oftentimes myself included, say we need to “ban corporations from buying homes.” Others want massive government subsidies and taxpayer funded programs designed to increase buying power. But if we fail to understand why the market became distorted in the first place, we risk making the problem even worse.
The reality here in Florida is that local working families are no longer the primary competition in many parts of the housing market. We are competing against international cash buyers, wealthy transplants fleeing higher cost states, institutional investors, and increasingly even smaller scale investors buying multiple properties at a time.
That changes everything, because a teacher in Kissimmee is not competing against another teacher anymore. A mechanic in St. Cloud is not competing against another mechanic. They are competing against people and entities with dramatically larger pools of capital and often all cash offers, almost 80% of the time cash offers.
That means simply giving local buyers more government backed purchasing power can unintentionally drive prices even higher. We have already seen evidence nationally that broad housing subsidies often get absorbed directly into home prices because sellers simply raise prices to match the new buying power available in the market. Kamala Harris’ $25,000 down payment program would have definitely caused that to happen.
And this is why this issue requires far more thoughtful discussion than the political soundbites we normally hear. The objective should not be causing the housing market to crash or home prices to rise even further. Florida benefits from investment, growth, and economic opportunity, but there must also be balance.
A healthy housing market is one where the people who actually work in a community can realistically afford to live there; and increasingly, that is no longer true. We should absolutely be discussing restrictions on large scale institutional ownership of single-family homes. But we should also be honest enough to acknowledge that many of the pressures driving prices are more nuanced than simply blaming Wall Street alone.
We should be discussing ways to protect workforce housing from speculative pressures without destroying investment entirely. We should be discussing insurance reform, because in Florida the carrying cost of ownership has become just as dangerous as the purchase price itself. We should be discussing pathways to ownership that prioritize owner occupancy over endless speculation. And perhaps most importantly, we should recognize that Florida’s housing market is not the same as most of the country. The pressures here are unique, which means many of the solutions may need to happen at the state level alongside federal reforms.
One thing I can say confidently after speaking with thousands of voters over the past two years is this: almost everyone understands something is fundamentally broken. People instinctively understand that a country where young families, teachers, nurses, first responders, hospitality workers, and ordinary Americans cannot afford homes while investment driven entities continue accumulating properties is not functioning the way a healthy society should function.
The foundation of the American Dream has always been ownership. It breeds economic stability and strong communities. And if we lose that, we lose far more than housing. We lose one of the foundational building blocks that made America strong in the first place.
