Immigration Increases demand for Housing and Supports Prices
If we allow immigration of workers at all levels - we will also absorb a lot of housing stock and help to support prices; we would increase tax revenues to the local, state, and federal governments and would increase demand for goods and services across the economy. Read this article to see more insights:
http://www.freep.com/article/20110501/NEWS15/110501017/1001/rss01
I often wonder...how many of the 12 million plus illegals have contributed to the real estate market? My guess is...not nearly enough.
Interesting post, Timothy.
I've also wondered about housing vacancy rates if all illegal or undocumented immigrants suddenly left Santa Clara County. I think it would create lots of vacancies.
Interesting for sure. This topic sparks so much emotion. It's tough to form a fair opinion.
Here are some things that I found to be quite helpful:
According to the US Census
Average household size = 2.60 http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFFacts?_see=on
Vacant housing units = 15,088,683 http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ACSSAFFFacts?_event=&geo_id=01000US&_geoContext=01000US&_street=&_county=&_cityTown=&_state=&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&ActiveGeoDiv=&_useEV=&pctxt=fph&pgsl=010&_submenuId=factsheet_1&ds_name=DEC_2000_SAFF&_ci_nbr=null&qr_name=null®=&_keyword=&_industry=So
With some simple math - if we were to absorb all of the existing empty housing units in the US - at the current average household size - we could accomodate around 37 million additional people, (or about 9 % more population), and not have to build any housing units.
It gets better - if we filled those houses HYPOTHETICALLY - the average taxes paid per capita (Gross collections) is around $8530 per capita - so we would not only absorb excess housing stock - but at these numbers the additional taxes paid would be in the range of 320,000,000,000. ( About 320 Billion per year). Which just happens to dwarf the entire budget of the Immigration and Border Enforcement of $15 billion. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/7341237.html
And it continues - the average GDP per capita is approximately 47,000 - so we would grow GDP by 1,650,000,000,000,000 (Check my math here) 1.65 Trillion seems low. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States
Seems to me there is something worth looking into here.. I'm only pointing out some food for thought for our leaders ... hmmmmmmmm. think 37 milion additional residents might be tough to assimilate - but certainly half that amount would be something to consider as manageable given the brain trust we have in DC
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