With little more than a week until Election Day, Kevin Gandy in Loganville, Georgia, still hasn’t decided who he’ll support for president.
Gandy, 52, says he’s worried about the slowing but still-high inflation, the cost of home maintenance and the overall economy – especially after having lost his job as a software consultant a couple of times in the past four years.
At the same time, as a homeowner who has seen his property value go up by about 60% in the booming post-pandemic housing market, he says he has some measure of financial security.
“I’m not doing as well as I was four years ago (because of job losses), but I am still in a comfortable financial situation,” said Gandy, a Libertarian who voted for former President Donald Trump in 2016 and a third-party candidate in 2020. “And even though I don’t think the economy is doing well, it’s not bad either.”
When voters think about the economy, the high price of gas, groceries and housing are often top of mind. During the past four years, these factors contributed to inflation reaching a four-decade high of 9.1% in June 2022 before it slowed down substantially in recent months. It currently stands at 2.4%.
Yet, the biggest contributor to inflation — soaring housing costs — has sparked conflicting emotions. On one hand, housing shortages have led to ever-increasing rental and home prices. But for homeowners, it has afforded a chance to accumulate wealth at a swift pace. The increase in home equity also has outpaced cumulative inflation over four years.
An analysis by USA TODAY based on data provided by the National Association of Realtors found that like Gandy, since 2020, median homeowners in all seven swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – accumulated housing wealth at a much higher rate than median homeowners across the United States.
The gap was the most pronounced in North Carolina. While the median U.S. homeowner saw their home value go up by 34%, the median Tar Heel homeowner enjoyed a 60% boost. Median homeowners in Arizona and Georgia saw their home’s net worth rise by 56% and 58% respectively, while Michiganders enjoyed a 47% increase.
Among the three remaining swing states, home values rose 43% in Pennsylvania; 50% in Wisconsin and 46% in Nevada.
Homeownership has been the backbone of wealth building in the U.S. dating back to the 1950s.
And now in an election with razor-thin margins, between Trump, a Republican, and Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, it may very well come down to home value gains in seven swing states and the effect it has on voter intention.
“What we know is that homeowners are good (reliable) voters. If they have the cash flow to absorb the inflation that we’ve had, then they are in a much better wealth position today than they were a couple of years ago,” said David Paleologos, the director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, which frequently conducts presidential polls.
He added: “It’s about perception. In a race that could be decided by a point or two, every factor matters.”
How much did property values change during Trump and Biden presidencies?
From 2020 to 2024, the median homeowner in every swing state grew wealthier than the median homeowner across the United States.
While median home values nationally climbed by just over $106,000, they shot up more than $128,000 in Wisconsin, $138,000 in Georgia, $141,000 in Nevada, $145,550 in North Carolina, and a whopping $162,000 in Arizona. Among the seven swing states, only Michigan and Pennsylvania fell below the national average, with increases of $94,000 and $84,500 respectively. Still, both Michigan and Pennsylvania outpaced the rate at which their housing wealth grew compared to a median homeowner nationally.
During the Trump administration, by contrast, homeowners in only one swing state gained more in housing wealth than the national average and only by a little. From 2016-2020, median homeowners in Arizona gained $72,170 in housing wealth, surpassing the $72,400 median homeowners gained nationally.
The reason for the disparity in the two four-year periods comes down to the pandemic housing market. While Arizona had seen people moving in from other states and the attendant home price increases even before 2020, the pandemic accelerated and expanded that trend to other Sun Belt and more affordable states. Many of the swing states also became the beneficiaries of that population shift as people began working remotely and seeking out larger, less expensive homes.
“The Sun Belt states also experienced strong job additions over this period,” said NAR’s chief economist Lawrence Yun. Meanwhile, “Wisconsin benefitted from the outflow of Chicago residents and remote work.”
How could homeowners impact the election?
Statistically speaking, homeowners tend to vote in much bigger numbers than renters.
For instance, in the 2022 midterm elections, that difference stood at 21 percentage points, with 58.1% of homeowners and 36.5% of renters voting, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Interviews with housing economists, researchers and independent homeowning voters in swing states indicate that the additional financial cushion provided by the upswing in housing wealth could tip the balance in favor of the incumbent party.
In fact, the phenomenon has a name: “Homevoter hypothesis.”
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As Redfin housing economist Daryl Fairweather explained, that’s when home equity gains or losses could change voter preference for candidates.
She pointed to a study published in 2019 which found that slower home value growth for Latino homeowners in Florida made them less likely to vote for incumbent Democrats in 2016.
Another research paper, titled “Housing performance and the electorate,” published earlier this year, applies the “homevoter hypothesis” to study the phenomenon across the past five presidential elections by looking at county level voting data.
The researchers found that 77% of the counties remained partisan, voting either Democrat or Republican in every election since 2000.
But 23%, or 641 counties, flipped their party vote anywhere from one to four times between 2004 and 2022.
For every 1% increase in home value appreciation, voters who previously voted for the incumbent were .3% more likely to stay with the incumbent nationally. But in swing counties, they were .44% more likely to stay with the incumbent and not flip to a challenger.
“Swing counties are less politically polarized, and we find a greater relationship between home prices and voting outcomes,” Eren Cifci, a professor of finance at Austin Peay State University, one of the authors of the paper, told USA TODAY. “When home prices appreciate, it might make them feel wealthier and increase the likelihood of them voting for the incumbent.”
But given the current unusual housing market, defined by a housing shortage and elevated mortgage rates, home equity might not be all that homeowners consider.
“I think that for people who are happy with their homes, it will benefit the incumbent party, which will be the Democrats,” said Fairweather. “But for people who feel like they are stuck in their home, and they can’t afford to buy their next one, I think they are probably disappointed.”
Jeff Linden, who is a registered independent from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, agrees.
Linden, a real estate agent, says while he is happy that his 2,100-square-foot, three-bedroom home, worth about $460,000 in 2020 could now fetch him $675,000, he routinely hears from his clients who are feeling stuck.
“The overwhelming story from existing homeowners has been, ‘I’ve got all this equity now in my house, but if I sell my house, I am going to paying through the nose to go wherever I am going,” he said. “But then on top of that, I’m going to give up a two and a half or 3% interest rate and get something that is double or triple that —, that doesn’t make any sense.”
Still, Linden will be voting for Harris. He thinks the economy will expand under her and believes the Federal Reserve has done a good job of navigating a soft landing for the economy.
Home values and voting for values
Given the strong emotions surrounding the upcoming election, Cifci and one of his co-authors, Owen Tidwell, cautioned that home equity gains was only one of many factors that could influence voters’ decisions.
“This is a really unique election cycle with a lot of things that have occurred that haven’t happened in a while,” Tidwell told USA TODAY, referring to Harris replacing Biden atop the Democratic ticket 100 days before the election.
Indeed, that is true for Susan Didrichsen, who has always voted for Democrats.
Last year, she decided to register as an independent in Pennsylvania.
One of the primary reasons for her shift was the way COVID-19 vaccines were being pushed by the Biden administration, she said.
Didrichsen, a vaccine refuser, who was then working as a professional singer in New York City, says she and her husband became outcasts.
“People were screaming at us, calling us murderers,” said Didrichsen.
In 2022, she sold her 500-square foot apartment in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan for six times what she had paid for it in 1989 and decided to permanently move to her country home in rural Pennsylvania.
Her home in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, also has gone up in value over the years. Her housing wealth is part of the reason she feels financially secure, and why the economy is not her top concern heading into the election, she said.
Her main concern is health, and she’s part of a growing homesteading movement.
So, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched his presidential campaign last year, she was all in.
“He was an environmentalist. He fought Monsanto, he saved the Hudson River,” she said of Kennedy, who is also the founder of an anti-vaccine group.
But when Kennedy suspended his campaign as an independent and threw his weight behind Trump, she decided to become a Trump supporter.
“Trump has survived everything the Democrats have thrown at him,” she said. “I’m voting for my values because Bobby Kennedy is going to be some kind of part of this (administration).”
For Gandy, the Georgia homeowner who has never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate before, increased housing wealth has given him the confidence to vote for his values.
“I don’t feel like a rich guy. But I feel confident in my ability to make it through any economic hardships that may arise from a Harris presidency,” he said. “And I’m willing to make that trade-off to keep Trump from destroying our Constitution.”
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House Correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How home wealth in swing states could sway the 2024 election
