Need help with a down payment? California Democrats want the state to chip in for homebuyers

Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me with many unintended and unthought of consequences? Also, who actually pays for it?

California could get in the business of helping first-time home buyers make down payments under a new proposal that aims to lower barriers to ownership in an era of sky-high housing costs.

A coalition of seven Democratic senators formally announced the “California Dream for All” program last week as part of a larger budget proposal they want Gov. Gavin Newsom to consider.

The state would serve as a “silent partner” to first-time owners, in exchange for up to 45% ownership of a house. By their calculation, that means someone eyeing a $400,000 home could buy it for “a more affordable price” of $220,000, with the state picking up the other $180,000.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article250735029.html

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this is so stupid…sigh. Can’t they just fix the regulator issues here (Prop 13 for Commercial and rental properties, eliminate stupid zoning where there is ancient commercial).

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Love it. The Democrats are going to give money as a subsidy to real estate developers and investors. They are dumber than I thought.

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Well, we as RE investors, just keep hodling :slight_smile:

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I cannot read the article. I assume this is not what the state is doing. But they should:

If state is paying 45% of the house, then state should own 45% of the appreciation. This is win-win for the state and first time buyers. Extra income for the state. And enable first time buyers to buy home.

All it does is inflate the cost of housing. The main benefit will go to developers and investors. Fine by me.
But a more financially sane idea would be to use the same tax dollars to reduce the cost of fees charged by the government for new construction. This would actually reduce the cost of new housing. Giving money to buy existing housing will have the opposite effect.

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Given democrats’ reputation, sometime in the future, they would let the house owner have the other 45% for free.

:+1:

There should be a restriction on selling and a limit on the purchase price.

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That’s how these programs have worked before. They’ve had down payment assistance for teachers or other public service workers. After x years, the down payment assistance is forgiven and the home owner has 100% equity.

There’s so much talk about racial inequality now. They’ll only approve certain minorities for the down payment assistance. Then later it’ll be forgiven in the name of helping racial inequality.