Immigration reform would boost housing markets | Bedford Hills Real Estate

Author William R. Alger once said that public opinion is a second conscience. That seems to be the case with public sentiment towards our nation’s immigration policy. A CNN poll shows 84 percent of Americans back a program that would allow undocumented workers to stay in the U.S. and apply for citizenship if they have been in the country for several years, have a job and pay back taxes.

Reforming our broken system and bringing 11 million people out of the shadows is not only the right thing to do, but also a smart economic move that would generate billions in federal, state and local taxes, stimulate housing purchases and trigger increased consumer spending. According to the Center for American Progress (CAP), new reforms would yield about $1.5 trillion in cumulative U.S. gross domestic product over 10 years.

All of which lawmakers seem to be adding up as a bipartisan committee of senators delivers a common-sense plan that could gain wide support — that is if anti-immigrant advocates don’t derail the bill. A study released by the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank, estimates that immigration reform would increase GDP by a percentage point each year over the next decade and, through this stream of tax revenue, reduce federal deficits by a combined $3.5 trillion.

If fiscal conservatives are doing the math on this, you know serious money is involved. What a difference a few years make. Back in 2004, the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals published a study — “The Potential for Homeownership Among Undocumented Workers” — that estimated that these families would generate about $44 billion in new mortgages.

This was a conservative estimate that factored only 200,000 householders and did not account for the consumption of goods and services these homeowners would incur –

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