Home prices across the nation are back up near a record high. That makes this a particularly bad time for the Biden administration to have rolled out its new “green” energy mandates, which will add $31,000 to the cost of a new home.
The mandates are being pushed through the Department of Housing and Urban Development and while they technically won’t apply to all homes, all homebuilders will effectively be forced to comply with them.
The Biden administration doesn’t deny this higher upfront cost. It simply claims it’ll pay for itself via lower energy bills. Unfortunately, the break-even point is 90 years.
So if a young couple buys one of these new green energy homes and has a child one year later, the regulatory costs still won’t have paid for themselves in that child’s lifetime, let alone the life of the couple who bought the home.
HUD argues that homebuilders will be able to get tax credits via the Inflation Reduction Act to offset some of these costs, with those savings hopefully passed along to homebuyers. However, this is not a real reduction in costs; it’s merely passing the buck to taxpayers. Instead of a homebuyer’s bearing the full freight of these green energy mandates, some of the cost will be passed on to taxpayers, including renters.
This is just the latest example of how failed public policies are creating a two-tiered society in America, where an entire generation of Americans will likely never be able to afford their own homes.
How much longer are we going to put up with this Green nonsense?
Delusions of Adequacy 