the study, “Housing performance and votersanalyzed home prices and election results in every county in the continental United States during each of the last six presidential elections. What he found was that swing counties in which home prices rose significantly in the four years before the election were more likely to vote for the incumbent candidate, in While provinces with poor price performance were more likely to flip to the rival party.
The findings offer insights into how home prices will impact the presidential race this year at a time when national home values are up more than 45% compared to four years ago, according to data from the Freddie Mac Home Price Index.
“Individuals vote based on economic well-being,” said Alan Tidwell, co-author of the study and associate professor of finance at the University of Alabama. luck. While many factors go into this measure, Tidwell and his colleagues “believed that the largest asset class in the United States, residential real estate, should be an important factor that may influence the direction voters choose at the ballot box,” Tidwell and his colleagues said.
The study found that between 2000 and 2020, 641 counties across the United States — or 23% of all counties — changed the party they voted for at least once. In those “swing districts,” each 1% increase in home values over the four years preceding the election was associated with a 0.36% increase in the probability of voting for the incumbent.
Even if a county did not vote for the incumbent in the previous election, a 1% increase in housing prices increases the probability of it switching its votes to the incumbent in the next election by 0.19%.
The study found that the relationship between home prices and voting behavior was strongest if home values increased by the most in the last year before the election, and higher prices were more favorable to incumbent parties if they were running a repeat candidate.
They chose to focus on swing counties in particular because their voting behavior was most sensitive to changes in home value, said Erin Sevce, the study's lead author.
“We found that counties do not change their vote 77% of the time across the six election periods,” said Sievci, an assistant professor of finance at Austin Peay State University. luck. “They vote for the same party regardless. . . Therefore, they do not interact with economic factors.”
Of the seven states considered eligible for the 2024 race, four — North Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin and Arizona — have seen home prices rise faster than the national average over the past four years. In Georgia and North Carolina, prices have risen more than 60% since 2020.
Taken alone, the study results suggest that rising home prices over the past four years may favor Biden in swing districts next November. But Sevsi cautioned that the results are just one reference point of many when it comes to how voters think about elections and the overall economy.
“If people are satisfied with (their home values), they might reward the current party for that,” he said. “But there are many other factors that should be taken into consideration.”
Certainly, in a historically unusual economic recovery, we will have to see whether the good fortunes of homeowners can offset the pessimism of almost everyone. less than 40% of Americans believe Biden will do the right thing for the economy as a whole, according to A The Gallup poll was released this month. FFor the second year in a row, a record high of 21% of respondents said this was a good time to buy a home, according to the same poll, while 70% expected prices to continue rising.
Overall, rising home prices have generated more bad news for Biden than good. Prospective homebuyers need to make roughly $50,000 more to buy a home than they did before the pandemic, and the country has a shortage of 2 million to 7 million homes, keeping prices high. in a study Commissioned by Redfin This year, nearly two-thirds of homeowners and renters said housing affordability made them feel negative about the economy.
