Colin Allen, American Property Owners Alliance | The Ownership Agenda

[00:00:00]This is the American dream. This is America. Build, baby, build.

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[00:00:22]The Deciders with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist [music] Brody Mullins and veteran DC strategist Lisa Camuso Miller.

[00:00:29]>> Welcome to The Deciders, where we talk to the insiders rewriting the rules for effective advocacy in Washington. Today, we're joined by Colin Allen, executive director of the American Property Owners Alliance.

[00:00:40]Colin, thanks for joining us.

[00:00:41]>> Thanks for having me, Brody.

[00:00:43]>> Colin, the Alliance represents homeowners, landlords, and small investors. One of the broadest constituencies, really, in America. But for a long time, you didn't have an organized voice. Talk about why you've built the Alliance and what the goals are today.

[00:00:57]>> So, Lisa, do you own your home?

[00:00:58]>> I do.

[00:00:59]>> Brody?

[00:00:59]>> You own your home?

[00:01:01]>> You guys know how busy you are on this.

[00:01:04]And and if you didn't live here in kind of the DC bubble, would you follow specific policies like the state and local tax deduction or capital gains, right? Do you Do you have the time to do that?

[00:01:15]>> Too busy.

[00:01:16]>> Well, there are 86 million of your fellow Americans who own their own homes who are kind of in a similar spot, right? They really need a voice in Washington. There are a lot of trades and things like that that advocate for uh for industries here in DC. Um but there has not been uh prior to to the last few years a voice specifically for homeowners. And that's the that's the niche we're looking to fill.

[00:01:36]>> Why is now the time for advocacy?

[00:01:39]>> We're looking at an affordability crisis here in America, right? Folks are are really worried about their future.

[00:01:44]They're worried about their ability to buy a home. Uh so, advocating for for policies that help people keep their homes, help them maintain them, uh but also uh kind of opening opportunities for for the folks who would like to get in and achieve their American dream of home ownership is uh is our main goal.

[00:01:59]>> You worked for Senator Lindsey Graham in the Senate working on tax, housing, other policies like that. What do you learn from Senator Graham about what works in advocacy and what doesn't?

[00:02:11]>> I think you kind of hit on it there, right? The the interplay between the politics and the legislating, right? Um, I can't be successful on the legislative side if I don't come back. Uh, so what is it that's important to really, uh, you know, talk to my constituents about uh, and and and that, you know, you can't just focus on one or the other, right? That there's got to be a good balance between making sure that you're there to do the work uh, and and and doing the actual work itself.

[00:02:35]>> Colin, property taxes have doubled even tripled in some places across the country, particularly the Sunbelt. Why is Washington not paying attention to that?

[00:02:43]>> You know, Washington can approach this issue of local taxes from a couple of different ways, right? One would be, uh, you know, are we looking to use federal policy to to disincentivize states and locals from increasing those taxes or do we want to approach it as we did with this SALT cap relief by saying that we, you know, we we don't want to, uh, double tax homeowners, right? That that that that this, uh, quadrupling of the SALT relief actually got to a point where, uh, you know, what we've got is the vast majority of Americans are able to fully deduct the taxes they pay on their homes at state local level.

[00:03:18]>> Just in terms of SALT or is there another tax policy that focuses on state and local deductions?

[00:03:22]>> Uh, that would be the main one. If you're looking at other things for for homeowners, right? You've got the mortgage interest deduction and then capital gains relief as well.

[00:03:30]>> Colin, you talked about the SALT increase, you talked about capital gains. What specifically are you asking for now?

[00:03:36]>> So on SALT, got a big win in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. We're able to quadruple the amount of SALT relief that folks who own homes are able to take, right? This will make sure that take it from $10,000 to $40,000 Uh and and that will cover the vast majority of American homeowners who are able to deduct the state and local taxes that they pay on their homes.

[00:03:58]Uh on the uh on the capital gains issue, we're working on a bill right now. It's called the More Homes on the Market Act.

[00:04:03]So, when you sell your home, right?

[00:04:04]You're able to deduct a certain amount or not pay capital gains taxes on a certain amount of it. Uh this bill would double that amount uh and index it to inflation movement forward. We would love to get that policy updated in in the new year.

[00:04:16]>> So, insurance and insurers, specifically, are pulling out of states like California and Louisiana. The premiums are also rising. What What do you make of that? What What's your analysis there?

[00:04:29]>> It's the increased cost of severe weather, right? You know, we're we're seeing larger events, but you've also got more people and more expensive uh real estate located in those areas. Uh so, it's leading to, you know, higher costs for recovery uh and higher costs for replacement of some of those things.

[00:04:45]So, how do you balance taking care of the folks who live there right now uh and making sure that they're able to get that insurance, uh you know, and and and then on the other side is is making sure that we don't continue to build where we know there are going to be natural disasters. [music] We'll be right back on The Deciders.

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[00:05:36]>> Welcome back [music] to The Deciders with Colin Allen.

[00:05:39]>> Colin, most people probably know about NIMBY, not in my backyard. There's this new movement called YIMBY. Uh tell us about that.

[00:05:46]>> So, yes in my backyard, and they have got one thing down and it you know I phrase it as build baby build. Uh we need to build more housing in places people want to live at a price they can afford which I think is really really important. The United States is 4 to 6 million housing units short, right? And the one way that we're going to solve this housing shortage is going to be to build more and and build more different types in in the places that folks want to live.

[00:06:11]>> The politics of housing and the you know the yes in my backyard or no in my backyard >> Uh the politics really becomes important, right? It it's it's not a partisan issue. It's it's not right.

[00:06:22]It's not left. People are just concerned about you know development in their backyards.

[00:06:25]>> Uh and this is one where you know again I think where where the alliance comes down is we just need to incent have the federal government from the federal level have the federal government incentivize states and locals to allow more quicker streamlined building of more homes.

[00:06:41]>> Colin, what do you attribute to that shortage? 4 to 6 million homes is quite a I mean that's a lot of homes. What why the shortage?

[00:06:48]>> It is a historic underbuilding from you know the great financial crisis, right?

[00:06:52]You had a lot of small builders kind of leave the industry and not come back.

[00:06:55]And and with tighten lending standards and things like that, right? Folks are just they're they're nervous about getting in. So, it is easily explained as a historic underbuilding over this last you know decade and a half.

[00:07:05]>> Last year there was this book that was all the rage abundance the Ezra Klein book and it basically talks about you know the housing crisis and and why we're having a lack of affordable >> housing and their conclusion is that we just don't have enough homes. It's a pretty easy thing like we're America.

[00:07:19]Let's just build more homes.

[00:07:20]>> We can build, right? No, and I you know that that from the abundance side of things that that that's the one piece that makes a it makes a ton of sense, right? We've got land. We've got the ability to do this.

[00:07:30]>> right? Yeah.

[00:07:31]>> This is the American dream. This is America.

[00:07:33]>> [laughter] >> Let let's provide that opportunity to folks who want it.

[00:07:37]>> Let's talk about the ban on short-term rentals. There's sort of been a a a of legislation and policy proposals across the country to ban short-term rentals.

[00:07:44]Where do you guys come down on that?

[00:07:45]>> And short-term rentals are one where you see this is this being a very local issue, right? There are arguments being made on the ground there saying, uh you know, we can blame some of the housing shortage, especially workforce housing in uh in resort-type areas on uh short-term rentals. We would leave that at a local level. I think you're starting to see the market actually kind of working itself out there.

[00:08:03]>> Property rights don't seem like they would be a partisan issue. Are you building the coalition in a way do you are you finding it that that we're aligned on both sides on this issue?

[00:08:13]Talk a little bit about what it's like to build a coalition.

[00:08:15]>> I I mean, the American dream is not a partisan issue, right? You've got a lot of interest in home ownership and property ownership uh across the spectrum, and we've got allies uh on both the left and the right. There are a lot of groups here in town doing work on home ownership and property rights issues for different parts of the industry, right? Home builders, realtors, mortgage bankers, but a lot of the times what you get from your homeowner is they may interact with some of those folks once or twice in their life, and they don't understand that they're here working on things like SALT, s- you know, working in the courts to to protect private property rights, um but they do see uh when you go out and say, "Hey, we've got an organization that's here that's working on your behalf. We want to do something for you.

[00:09:01]There's no cost to it. Uh you know, let us uh be your voice in DC." I I think we get a lot of uh we get a lot of interest in uh in that kind of work.

[00:09:09]>> As you build the coalition, you yourself do quite a bit of travel. You're out in the world and you're talking to people about this. What would you say is the reception that you get when you're out on the ground talking to folks?

[00:09:19]>> Yeah, so I really I think we get a great response when we're out in the communities, and we've got this uh one of one of our kind of educational pieces right now is called the Unlocking Opportunity Tour. We're going out and kind of debunking myths, right? You know, some of it is uh did you know that you didn't have to have 20% down to buy your own home? 80% of folks like think that you got to have a hard and fast 20%. Average price of a home in the country right now is over $400,000. If you think you got to take 80 or 90,000 dollars to close, like you're not even going to start looking, right?

[00:09:46]>> [laughter] >> Right.

[00:09:47]>> So, you know, kind of getting out there and it's really rewarding at the end of the day to be able to go out and see folks across the country and help them you know, really even just start the process, right? We're convening, we're we're making connections at the local level, but also kind of debunking some of those persistent myths about about ownership.

[00:10:02]>> Colin, how does the rise of populism on the right and progressivism on the left affect property owners?

[00:10:09]>> I think we see it manifest itself in a couple of different ways. One of them is going to be rent control, right? You know, what can you do for me right now regardless of you know, the cost to upkeep, to maintain, to pay taxes on a home. It's a feel-good policy. It happens right now, but it has really negative downstream effects on on the housing supply and the housing stock and the owners of those properties. The other piece that we see on this populistic side is the kind of corporate ownership of single-family homes. When you talk to voters, when you talk to folks across the country, they see it very much as like this is something that's impacting me. Everybody has that story, right? Of I know that friend or I personally lost out on a bid to a cash buyer and they just don't feel like that that's you know, right. I've got to go out and I've got to bid against these folks who are coming in and paying cash for homes when I got to get a mortgage and I'm at a competitive disadvantage and there's a strong strong sentiment of that on the on the popular side.

[00:11:03]>> That's a good point that you make.

[00:11:05]There's a real difference between companies like Blackstone buying up neighborhoods versus the retired couple who own one rental property. How does the alliance make that distinction and make it land with the audience that you're trying to influence?

[00:11:21]>> Great thing is that's an easy one, right? At the alliance we represent individuals. You can very much put a literal face on on your neighbor, on your grandparents.

[00:11:30]There's a lot of distrust on Wall Street and and and folks are just, you know, they get nervous about those kind of things, but they know their neighbors, they know their friends and and can say, I know these folks and and and can make that distinction.

[00:11:40]>> Do property issues actually motivate voters?

[00:11:43]>> Absolutely. You know, what you're seeing now, this whole discussion around affordability and availability, I think it's a huge issue this year. You're seeing Congress kind of take up issues around housing and home ownership. We've got a few things that we'd like to see taken up on the tax side to to ease some of that affordability.

[00:12:01]But but really I think this this this election this year will be decided on issues of affordability.

[00:12:06]>> Colin, property rights and property rights issues still are very technical.

[00:12:11]How have you at the Alliance taken those complex issues and distilled them for the audience that you're trying to reach?

[00:12:19]>> So this is another one, right? Where you're able to put a personal face on it, right? We we dealt with an issue on home equity theft a few years ago. A 93-year-old grandmother owed property tax to her municipality, you know, in the it was like $15,000, right? They foreclosed on her, kept the house, kept the entire value of the home. She didn't dispute having a tax debt, but said, I don't think that the county that I live in should be able to keep the entire value of my home.

[00:12:50]This is my nest egg. This is you know, this is this is what I've saved and this is going to help me fund my retirement.

[00:12:57]We were able to work with a coalition of groups, take that to the Supreme Court, won 9 to nothing. So now we're we're working to resolve this issue of home equity theft. It's it's resolved at the federal level, but you know, our our work is going to resolve that at state and local level as well.

[00:13:10]>> You also talk about how home ownership is what drives generational wealth. Talk a little bit about that.

[00:13:18]>> I mean this is the way that the vast majority of Americans like build personal wealth, right? Is by investing in themselves, investing in their community and buying a home. My grandparents were able to get through the depression because they lived on a farm and could >> [laughter] >> could feed themselves during that time.

[00:13:33]They then gave that you know, kind of gave that land to my parents when it was time for us to build a home.

[00:13:38]My parents were able to help me with college, things like that because they were able to tap the equity in their home, right? So I've seen firsthand kind of what it can do and I want that opportunity for for everybody who kind of desires it.

[00:13:48]>> Something that's sort of scary along those lines because of the housing crisis back in the day.

[00:13:52]So many younger people are afraid of taking on debt cuz they saw their parents lose their homes. I mean, we all know you buy a home young, you buy a condo young and that equity grows. This generation is afraid of that. Well, what does that mean? How do we fix that?

[00:14:05]>> And and people are kind of waiting on it, right? Like they're they're sitting back and I think a lot of what we are doing on the education side is trying to help people, you know, recover from that traumatic experience and really help them make a decision that'll that'll help them in the long [music] run.

[00:14:20]>> We'll be right back after the break.

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[00:14:54]>> Welcome back to The Desires with Colin Allen.

[00:14:56]>> Colin, we ask every guest on The Desires the same three questions.

[00:14:59]>> What's the decision in the last year that you're most proud of?

[00:15:02]>> So this year, I have like really taken time to recalibrate and readjust the approach the alliance has taken to the public affairs and the advocacy side of things and have been able to bring in a couple of wonderful new staffers. So I'm really excited about the growth that we're having and our ability to really kind of leverage those folks, their insights, and their expertise to move the organization into the into the rest of the year and, you know, into the next, you know, 20 years.

[00:15:30]>> What's a decision you'd like to do over?

[00:15:32]>> The one thing, and this is more of a personal decision, that I'd have kids earlier, right? We were kind of talking a little bit about advice from from parents and and that was one that I I I think, you know, as I'm looking at the current generation and them taking time to buy houses, start families, things like that, as a as an older dad, I I I you know, I'd I'd love to, you know, maybe maybe turn back the clock five or five or so years and and and have my have my little ones a little earlier.

[00:15:58]>> Nothing wrong with an old dad, though.

[00:16:00]>> [laughter] >> Colin, last question is always, what's something Washington is not thinking about right now that they should be?

[00:16:09]>> So, I think the thing that Washington is not paying enough enough attention to you right now is this kind of populist tilt in in politics. I'm really concerned that the way this is going, we're going to see a lot of whipsaw back and forth, right? This is just people who are dissatisfied.

[00:16:24]You're seeing some of the things manifest themselves in terms of, you know, prices and things like that, and my concern is that we see a lot of back and forth because it's it's not I'm mad with the Republicans or I'm mad with the Democrats. It's like I am unhappy and I am not secure in my future. So, I'm I'm going to vote to kick the bums out every time I vote.

[00:16:43]>> So interesting you say that, too, cuz we saw so many crossovers from voting for a Republican in the presidency and voting for the current mayor in New York City, and that is not about politics, that is about the way people feel about their their own personal story.

[00:16:59]>> very much a personal and like financial security, and and I think that's that's really what we're looking at here, probably for the next decade, right? You know, let's let's get these things fixed.

[00:17:08]>> Definitely. [laughter] Thank you for being with us.

[00:17:10]>> Thanks for having me.

[00:17:13]>> That was Colin Allen of the American Property Owners Alliance. Brody, what [music] did you think?

[00:17:17]>> You know, I really agree with his final answer, which is the rise of populism and progressivism on on both sides. And really more to that, this whipsaw that he mentioned. We really are going to be spending the next decade, maybe longer, uh catapulting from one extreme policy on the left to an extreme policy on the right. I think he hit the nail on the head right there.

[00:17:36]>> I am exhausted by the thought of all of that, but I think you're probably right, and I think that it's smart for him to have that takeaway. I also really like that Colin is thinking ahead about how important it is for property owners to really have a voice here in town, and that's something that I think is a real value.

[00:17:52]>> Thanks for joining us on The Deciders.

[00:17:54]>> The Deciders is hosted by Brody Mullins and Lisa Camuso Miller and produced [music] by Dave Toby. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Find more online at deciders.show [music] and follow The Deciders on YouTube, LinkedIn, and X.