During a Senate Banking Committee hearing last week, Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) spoke about the growing cost of home ownership.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00And I think we need bipartisan solutions.
00:03Thank you so very much.
00:04Thanks, Senator.
00:04I look forward to you and Senator Moreno working together
00:07on solving these issues.
00:09Senator McCormick.
00:11Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Warren.
00:13And thank you to a great, great panel.
00:15In addition to being an integral part
00:18of the American Dream home ownership,
00:20obviously carries great financial benefit as the home
00:24for many families is the most important asset.
00:27When I'm back in Pennsylvania, I consistently
00:29hear about this problem, the difficulty
00:31of affording a home.
00:33Across Pennsylvania, housing prices are up 11%
00:35over the last year.
00:37And major metro areas, in particular Philadelphia
00:39and Pittsburgh, rank near the bottom nationally
00:42of new home construction.
00:45So the American Dream that we all want for everyone
00:47is slipping away because of this mismatch
00:51between supply and demand.
00:53So Mayor Johnson, good to see you.
00:55I know you're from my wife's hometown
00:57and a good friend of hers and work closely with her.
01:00Could you give us a perspective as a big city
01:03mayor on the challenges you particularly
01:06have faced with housing construction and stories
01:10you may have heard from other mayors?
01:12Well, Senator, I appreciate the question.
01:14I think, so Dallas, the city of Dallas proper,
01:19which I'm the mayor of, is surrounded
01:22by several vibrant what used to be bedroom communities
01:26but are now relatively large, successful suburbs
01:30in their own right.
01:32And the metro area that we formed together,
01:36we call the metroplex or the DFW region,
01:39is soon to be the third largest metro area in the United
01:41States.
01:42And it's the fastest growing in the United States.
01:44It's 8 million people.
01:46And it's a very dynamic region with a lot of job growth,
01:52a lot of economic opportunity.
01:55I describe us as the buckle of the Sun Belt.
01:58And the Sun Belt is the fastest growing part
02:00of the United States population wise and economically.
02:04And so there is no shortage of folks
02:08who want to do business in our neck of the woods,
02:13home building included.
02:16But they have choices to make in where they do that building.
02:20And one of my challenges as the mayor of Dallas
02:24is to make Dallas a more competitive place for them
02:27to do that vis-a-vis our surrounding communities.
02:32One of the most common things I hear
02:37from folks who are in that line of work about why not Dallas
02:40and why someplace else is the permitting process
02:45and how cumbersome it can be to navigate that process.
02:50And so that is why I've been so focused on that
02:52while I've been mayor.
02:53But your question, I think, highlights something
02:56that I really want to emphasize for this committee.
02:58And I alluded to it before about how
03:01this has to come to Congress, in my mind,
03:03and it has to be on y'all's minds
03:04if we're going to address it for your constituents, whoever
03:07those may be, is that this is a national competition
03:12for the same people.
03:14And the problem just moves around the country.
03:17It just moves around.
03:19We benefit from being more affordable, so to speak,
03:25than California.
03:27But Oklahoma City benefits from being
03:30more affordable than Dallas.
03:31And you just kind of keep pushing it around.
03:34We have to deal with it, I think, in a national manner.
03:38And for sure, I think the solution and the answer
03:42is to increase the amount of homes that are being built.
03:45And a big barrier to it is how long
03:48it takes to get the projects done.
03:50That's what we're hearing across the board.
03:52I'm going to move to Ms. Willis for a second.
03:53I want to talk about veterans, homelessness.
03:56I know, Mayor, you've had success in Dallas with that.
03:59I wondered if you could just comment
04:01on the collaboration you've seen between the VA and HUD
04:04on this and what the national trends you're seeing
04:07on veterans' homelessness.
04:09Sure, thank you for the question.
04:11I would say that homelessness, there's
04:14documented studies in terms of with Housing First,
04:18with making sure that homeless veterans are housed.
04:23And so there's a study that at least the success
04:28rate is over 50%.
04:31Is it getting better?
04:32Yeah, it's certainly getting better.
04:34Because as you probably know, that there
04:36are on any given night over 770,000 people
04:41who are living on the streets every night.
04:44But in terms of veterans' homelessness,
04:47the trend is that it's being solved and getting better.
04:51But we certainly do want to see more.
04:53Good, thank you.
04:53And Dr. Glazer, I want to get your big brain
04:56into this for a second, which is just
04:58if you look current course for this committee
05:02to think about without a change in the overall posture
05:06of policymakers, what would you think housing prices are going
05:10to do in the next five years?
05:13So I'm going to dodge that one, Senator, just to be honest.
05:18Because corrections are always possible,
05:20and I don't want to be on the record for the next five.
05:22Let me say, if we do not go to the next five.
05:24Oh, you should learn to hedge.
05:25I mean, we all know how to do that.
05:27Come on.
05:28Give me a longer time horizon, Senator.
05:30And I see no reason why we're going
05:33to correct course in any way.
05:35So give me 10 years.
05:36Give me 15 years so we can get past whatever housing cycle
05:38might emerge in the next five years.
05:40It feels to me like it is an America in which
05:42more and more of this country is closed off to opportunity,
05:46is closed off to people finding a future.
05:48When I was a kid, I read this book
05:50called The Rise and Decline of Nations by Mankar Olson.
05:52And it was a book about how stable societies get captured
05:55by insiders and make it impossible for outsiders
05:58to find a fortune.
05:59When I read this coming off of Reagan's America,
06:01that didn't feel like my America then.
06:03It feels more and more like America now.
06:05And that's why I think it is so important for your committee
06:07to make sure that an America of opportunity
06:09continues everywhere.
06:10We'll end on Mankar Olson.