Housing costs are rising everywhere — but especially in swing states

WILMINGTON, N.C. - A multiyear surge in home prices has hit hardest in the swing states that are likely to determine the outcome of the 2024 presidential campaign, suggesting that America’s housing affordability crisis is weighing heavily as the nation’s most sought-after voters head to the polls.

Americans in swing states are far more likely to live in areas where housing has become disproportionately more costly since 2019, according to a Washington Post analysis of home-price data. Nationally, home prices have grown 48 percent since 2019. But in some counties across the seven most tightly-contested swing states - including Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania - prices have more than doubled, an analysis of Zillow data shows.

That means a majority of swing-state voters - who already cite the economy as their top concern - are facing outsize burdens from high home prices and rents.

“This is no longer just a big coastal city problem,” said Dennis Shea, executive director of the J. Ronald Terwilliger Center for Housing Policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “Housing affordability is poor everywhere, and home prices have gone up dramatically in all seven swing states since 2019.”

The Post analyzed a broad swath of economic data in swing states to determine why those voters tend to say they are pessimistic about the nation’s economy. The analysis found that counties in swing states were more likely to be financially disadvantaged than other counties across America, with slower growth or even contraction in economic output and wages.

But housing costs emerged as the starkest economic challenge, especially in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. In those three states, more than 80 percent of voters live in counties where housing costs surged faster than the national average between August 2019 to August 2024, The Post found. Many swing states, particularly along the Sun Belt, experienced an influx of new residents during the pandemic, driving up demand for housing at the same time covid-related challenges made it difficult to keep up with new construction. That burst of demand, combined with constrained supply, led to a rapid run-up in prices.

Wilmington, N.C., offers a telling case study. Home prices in the coastal tourist town near the state’s southern border shot up 65 percent over those five years. Those higher costs are coloring local views of the economy for both renters and homeowners, who say housing affordability has quickly become one of their biggest concerns.

“My number one issue is cost of living,” said Jimmy Loyd, 57, a prep cook whose rent rose more than 30 percent this year. “I’m all for anyone that can help us, the lower-middle class, living paycheck to paycheck.”

Loyd, a Republican who plans to vote for former president Donald Trump in November, makes $15.50 an hour - and puts about half of his earnings toward his $790 monthly rent for a room in an old house in downtown Wilmington. To make ends meet, he works 50-hour weeks and spends his days off scouring thrift stores and timing supermarket trips so he can buy meat right after it’s been marked down at 9 a.m.

“With prices this high, you’ve got to adjust,” he said. “What else can I do?”

New Hanover County is hotly contested: Four years ago, President Joe Biden won by just over 2 percentage points, reversing 40 years of Republican wins and narrowing Trump’s tight hold on the state. While it’s not clear how the candidates are polling in New Hanover, statewide North Carolina polls show a close race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Voters in both camps agree they’re tired of high housing costs. In addition to soaring home prices, rental prices in surrounding New Hanover County have soared by 35 percent in five years, far exceeding the national average of 19 percent, according to The Post’s analysis. Overall in the seven swing states, nearly half of all counties have seen rents rise by more than the national average, affecting 84 percent of those states’ voters.

“I hear it from both sides,” said Tara English, a Wilmington real estate agent and coffee shop owner. “Whether you’re voting for Trump or Harris, it’s peoples’ top concern: Will their candidate be better for the economy, and the housing market in particular?”

In interviews with more than 40 Wilmingtonians, almost all said rising housing costs - rents and home prices, but also property taxes and insurance - are overshadowing just about every other economic concern. Many said they are spending more than half their take-home pay on housing, leaving little for other necessities like food and gas.

One 66-year-old retiree, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing her arrangement, said she was living in student housing at a local university, because it’s the only thing she could find for less than $1,000 a month.

“Affordable housing doesn’t exist here anymore,” said Heather Holbrook, operations manager at the Rescue Mission of Cape Fear, a local homeless shelter where it’s been increasingly difficult to secure permanent housing for residents. “No matter how many hours people work, or how much they save, it’s becoming impossible.”

While North Carolina is the hardest hit, with 89 out of 100 counties facing higher than average house price increases, The Post found similar housing cost challenges in other swing states. North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia have all seen a recent rush of households making more than $200,000 a year, further driving up costs. The two exceptions were Pennsylvania and Nevada, where home price increases tended to lag the rest of the country. However, the majority of voters in those states had faced disproportionately high rent increases.

Nationwide, affordable housing has emerged as one of the election’s biggest issues, and both candidates have offered policy prescriptions. Harris has vowed to build 3 million new homes, provide $25,000 in down payment support to first-time homeowners and expand low-income housing tax credits. She has also proposed $40 billion in state and local funding to encourage new rentals and affordable homes, as well as new incentives for builders who focus on starter homes.

“Sadly, right now, [homeownership] is out of reach for far too many American families,” she said in an August speech in Raleigh. “We will take down barriers and cut red tape … and by the end of my first term, we will end America’s housing shortage.”

Trump has been less specific. He has said he would promote homeownership by offering tax incentives, and easing regulatory and permitting requirements. And he has suggested that his plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants would lower costs by freeing up housing. However, such a move could also increase costs because undocumented workers are often hired to construct new homes.

In a statement, the Trump campaign added that he would “by defeating historic inflation and reducing the mortgage rate back down to 3 percent.” Mortgage rates, currently about 6.3 percent, are largely dependent on actions by the Federal Reserve, which works independent from the government.

“We will make housing much more affordable,” Trump said last month at the Economic Club of New York. “We will eliminate regulations that drive up housing costs with the goal of cutting the cost of a new home in half.”

Harris has a slight edge with voters when it comes to housing affordability, with 45 percent saying she would be the best candidate compared to 42 percent for Trump, according to a Wall Street Journal poll released this month. Overall, Trump maintains an advantage on handling the economy in polls.

In Wilmington, a flood of new residents since the pandemic, mostly retirees and remote workers with big-city salaries, has reshaped the area’s housing market. Starter homes that sold for $175,000 a few years ago are now commanding as much as $380,000, realtors said. Developers are also swooping in, turning modest single-family homes into luxury properties, and snapping up beachside houses to rent to tourists.

“Wilmington has experienced absolutely explosive growth,” said Mouhcine Guettabi, a regional economist at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. “And of course economics and politics are intertwined, so if your rent has gone up 40 percent - well, that’s going to alter your world view and who you think would be most effective running the country.”

Brian Rupp has watched his Wilmington-area home value balloon 66 percent, from $250, o00 to $416,000, in two years. But instead of feeling good about it, he says, he feels increasingly stuck.

“That’s $166,000 of free equity just falling out of the sky - which sounds great, until you realize your taxes are also shooting up and you can’t really afford to sell and move,” said Rupp, 49, a consultant to small businesses who said he plans to vote for Harris. “You’re gaining value, but feeling poorer.”

As a fiscal conservative Rupp says he generally favors low taxes and reduced government spending. But he likes Harris’s pragmatism and says his own finances feel far less important than issues like democracy, abortion and gay rights.

“Democrats get a bad rap on the economy, but honestly, at a certain point, it’s like: How much are your values worth?” he said. “How much are women’s rights worth to you? Maybe you’ll get lower taxes under Trump, but what else will you lose?”

Tina Rhodes sees it differently. The 49-year-old mother of two says rising property taxes, insurance costs and food prices are pinching her family. And although she spent her 20s “as a liberal Democrat in California,” she says she’s since become more focused on economic issues. This year, both she and her husband will vote for Trump, she said, in large part because they hope he’ll focus on lowering costs.

“I’ve lived both ends of it, and now I’m just a mom who really just cares about being able to afford to live,” Rhodes said. “The only people who can afford to live here now are wealthy or have five roommates.”