Our conclusion from your Survey results is that you are no dummies
Fiscally Responsible
You know the value of money and the importance of being fiscally responsible. This was the number one survey result, earning nearly a quarter of the votes received. Since we agree to pay taxes in Portsmouth and support what the City does financially, we want our tax money to be spent wisely.
Not even frugally. Just wisely.
Hot Topic: Affordable Housing
One of the hot topics for Portsmouth, for New Hampshire and for the nation is affordable housing. The survey results indicate that those who took the survey want more support for affordable housing.
Every politician in town and in the country is ready to climb on board this wagon. Why not? Along with being fiscally responsible, everyone wants more for less. Especially when our homes represent easily one-third or more of our net worth.
Confirmation
So, we confirmed that you are no slouches intellectually speaking. Of course! We knew that! You read the Pulse. And we confirmed that you want to watch your dollar, as well you should. And we now know that you care about having your most valuable personal asset priced appropriately.
Details, Details
So, what drives the cost of housing? How can it be made more reasonably valued?
One of the biggest drivers of the cost of housing is supply and demand.
Supply is constrained by r-e-g-u-l-a-t-i-o-n. Can I build new housing here? Not if wetlands are nearby. Or not if my neighbors protest too loudly. Or not if your housing will add too much traffic to the narrow roads and tiny streets.
All of these supply issues and many more will limit who can build what and how much and where.
Demand issues come in the form of how affordable the housing is. Sounds circular. It is unless there are price controls on the price of the house.
If interest rates are low and banks have relaxed lending standards and money is easy, the cost of housing is also low. But if inflation is heating up and central banks are hiking interest rates and local banks are tightening their residential housing loans, then housing gets more expensive quickly.
Government To the Rescue!
Wags tell us the nine scariest words in the English language are: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Today’s inaffordable housing has roots in yesterday’s failed government intervention. No matter what the government does today, its current intervention is likely to have an adverse effect on tomorrow’s affordability of housing. Be careful what you seek!
Innovative Ideas
If government is going to stick its nose into this problem to try to help provide more affordable housing, we should try to find innovative sources of funding and construction solutions that are not overly disruptive of the current marketplace. Small is beautiful. No one wants St. Louis’s Pruitt Igoe or Chicago’s Cabrini Green to be built in Portsmouth.
This means we should seek ideas that tweak things on the margins to preserve the quality of life we all appreciate in Portsmouth. In doing so, we come back to the first quality of our Survey: let’s be fiscally responsible in how we approach this issue for today’s City and for future generations as well.
Image courtesy: https://steelbone.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/survey-results.png
