Housing policy ignored the cost of staying in a home

The housing affordability conversation has a blind spot. For decades, it has centered almost entirely on entry: down payments, mortgage rates, inventory, supply. That work matters, and while there is clearly much more to be done, it has produced real results over the years. However, it shares a design logic with nearly every major housing policy intervention of the last century. Get people in the door, and the rest will follow. It won’t. The data is starting to show it. As the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) approaches its 40th anniversary, policymakers are rightly acknowledging one of the most consequential affordable housing programs in American history. Yet even that conversation reveals the pattern. The focus, as it has always been, is on getting people in homes. Almost no one is asking what happens afterwards. A Hometap survey of 1,000 homeowners conducted in June 2026 found that fewer than one in five say homeownership has fully delivered on the promise of the American Dream. That is the story policy has yet to reckon with. The policy playbook has focused on entry Recent Realtor.com research traced the history of federal housing legislation, and the story it tells is ge...