A new article in Social Sciences Research Network (SRRN), “What State Housing Policies Do Voters Want? Evidence from a Platform Choice Experiment,” explores national perceptions about the efficacy of state housing policies, general support for those policies, and where housing issues fall in the order of importance when compared to other political issues. The authors conducted a national online survey of 5,000 urban and suburban adults to obtain their opinions on different housing policy solutions. Survey results indicate that a vast majority of respondents support stricter rent control, more regulation of corporate ownership of housing, property tax caps, inclusionary zoning, and more affordable housing subsidies. These results appear to contradict the common policy recommendations of many economists and other experts, which tend to focus more on increasing housing supply through deregulation to alleviate high housing costs.
Previous studies suggested that the general public does not view increases to the supply of market rate housing as a solution to housing affordability challenges. The authors developed two research questions in response to these findings: (1) if people want lower housing costs, but generally do not see housing supply as making a difference, then what policies do they believe will work?; and (2) when people must choose between housing policy preferences and policy issues on other social and economic matters, does housing policy remain a priority to them? They hypothesized that individuals would most strongly favor rent control, property tax limitations, and regulations on corporate ownership of housing. Regarding their second question, the authors believed respondents would list the cost of housing as a high priority, but that housing policy issues would carry less weight for people than other social and economic concerns such as abortion, immigration, and gun regulations.
The authors tested their hypotheses by conducting a national survey. The survey posed questions about 17 different housing policies, ranging from supply-side measures such as building more market rate housing or subsidized housing to rent control or providing housing vouchers to low-income renters. Twenty-two non-housing policies were also polled to compare their perceived importance with housing issues. Abortion was the top issue selected overall, but a substantial share of respondents selected housing costs as a top three issue, with 27% of renters and 14% of homeowners choosing this option. Similarly, the challenge of homelessness was selected as a top three issue by 37% of renters and 23% of homeowners.
The authors also found that allowing the development of more subsidized affordable housing was 25 percentage points more popular than deregulation to allow more market rate housing development – an unexpected result. Respondents also supported price controls and demand subsidies much more strongly than market rate supply measures. Approximately 85% of respondents supported rent control, property tax-limits, down-payment subsidies, and restrictions on corporate ownership of housing. Almost as many respondents supported developer requirements to include middle-income or lower-income housing in new developments. The housing policies perceived as most effective were similar: rent control, inclusionary zoning, building more subsidized affordable housing, and down-payment assistance. The least popular policies and those perceived as most ineffective were allowing more market rate apartments to be built and reducing the requirements for off street parking in new developments. More than 75% of respondents were in favor of increasing government spending on housing whether through rental assistance vouchers, renter tax breaks, or subsidized affordable housing.
The authors suggest that their findings provide strong evidence that people want relief from high housing costs and broadly support a range of specific housing policies to achieve this goal. The authors conclude that state officials will likely face growing pressure to enact some of these popular policies to address the housing crisis. They add that future research is needed to understand whether and how people update their housing policy preferences in response to new information.
Read the article at: https://bit.ly/4jt20Or