A recent and superficially very generous offer to boost low-income South Carolina residents onto the housing ladder has been described as “One Of The Best Deals We’ve Ever Had.” The wording of this offer made this writer instantly wary.
South Carolina traditionally has helped first time buyers achieve the American Dream of home ownership with what has until recently been a $6,000 grant. Now the great ‘deal’ has been to upped to $15,000.
Deals are everywhere! This writer’s family was just offered an unbeatable deal on a new car. “We’ve just bought one!” we said (which was how the dealership knew to contact us).
But surely we wouldn’t want to miss an unbeatable deal!
The deal did not offer quite the same outcome (owning 2 cars, one entirely superfluous) as South Carolina’s ‘best deal ever” (risking a great deal of money over 25+ years on the largest speculative investment most families ever make, even though their income is low and precarious).
Pre–2008, weren’t subprime mortgages that ‘best deal ever’ for low income folks who really couldn’t afford to ruin their lives with with the American Dream, sponsored by your local bank and gratefully insatiable local builder? Turns out the buyers were right and the promoters were wrong — countless housing investments went down the toilet and the victims, credit ratings destroyed, were evicted with lives permanently damaged.
A great number of people of all classes have come to understand that renting can be a much more sound financial strategy than the home ownership dream for maintaining shelter when income is precarious.
Should South Carolina really be squandering the assets of the ‘bank of the taxpayer’ to entice low income individuals and families to chose a risky lifelong investment order to subsidize the local homebuilding and home financing industries?
Decide for yourself. Read more at WIS NEWS: $15,000 To Help With Home Down Payment, “One Of The Best Deals We’ve Ever Had” At SC Housing
