Republicans should admit it: Home affordability is not fake news

Homeowners vote red. Renters vote blue.Will a 50-year mortgage make a red voter out of you?That’s what President Donald Trump hoped Saturday, when he posted the idea of stretching out the customary 30-year repayment terms for home mortgages to 50 years.Turns out, that idea is smoke and mirrors, prohibited by the Dodd-Frank law, among other things.But at least Trump recognizes that home affordability is a real crisis.

Not fake news.“Affordability” is the campaign pledge that produced big wins on Election Day, and most of the winners were Democrats. Affording a home is increasingly out of reach: The median age of first-time home-buyers just hit 40, per the National Association of Realtors. At that age, many women are worried about no longer being able to bear children, yet they still can’t afford a starter home.In 1991, the median age of someone buying their first home was 28, but in the last few years, it’s become the impossible dream for people even in their 30s.The implications are huge, not only for starting a family but also for voting.Renters favor Democrats by almost two to one, according to data from the American National Election Studies.Homeowners are twice as likely as renters to identify as “strongly Republican,” reports Aziz Sunderji, an economist at Wired who analyzed several decades of this data.Starting in the 1970s, renters were slightly more inclined to vote Democratic than Republican, but over the last 20 years, they swung sharply leftward.Making homeownership possible is not only good policy.For Republicans, it’s smart politics.In New York City, people in their 30s earning good money — as much as $120,00 or more, per economics reporter John Carney — can’t make the leap to home-ownership.In the mayoral election, strong support for Democratic Socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani came from Brooklyn neighborhoods inhabited by “downwardly mobile professionals” who are settling for cramped rental apartments and roommate...