SRQ Daily: The Perspectives Edition features analysis, commentary and insight on current events in Sarasota and Manatee counties from regular columnists, local leaders and guest contributors. Readers are invited to submit letters that respectfully share their perspective on a local community topic or issue to: letters@srqme.com. Submissions received before Thursday of each week will be considered for the immediate Saturday edition. Editors reserve the right to fact-check and edit. SRQ MEDIA does not house an editorial board and as such does not publish editorials or endorsements of candidates. The opinions and analysis of columns and letters shared in this edition are those of the writer who submitted them. The Perspectives Edition serves as a respectful and thoughtful space for readers to share their voices on topics that are important to them. 

Nothing makes a political observer miss equal views on vote-by-mail like watching election returns. This Tuesday looked like it might be a good day for Democrats running for nonpartisan School Board seats. In the morning, that is. But everything would change as a flood of Republican voters who didn’t feel moved to vote early or to send ballots in through the post office hit precinct locations in every part of the county.

Through SRQ’s Where The Votes Are presentations for more than a decade, I have often looked to when people vote as a sign of momentum. Partisan attitudes about mail voting changed significantly the last few years and I’m no longer quite sure that still applies. But at least the change firmly lets us see the difference in energy between Republican and other voters. This year, that provided a chance to see the intensity surrounding school races in vivid color.

What do I mean? After watching the voting patterns reported on Aug. 23 by the Supervisor of Elections office, I took an early snapshot of returns shortly after polls closed. The office after 7 pm released results that included only early voting and those mail ballots received in enough time to count during the day.

At that point, Dawnyelle Singleton led Republican opponent and incumbent Bridget Ziegler by more than 52% to less than 48%. Democrat Nora Cietek had an impressive lead of more than 14 percentage points on Republican Tim Enos. Likewise, Democrat Lauren Kurkov led Republican Robyn Marinelli by more than 11 percentage points. 

But then came Tuesday, when all the bottled up enthusiasm of the GOP, maybe ignited by Gov. Ron DeSantis bringing an education-focused pre-primary tour to Sarasota, unleashed. Starting the day with low numbers made a wide array of local Republican leaders nervous how the races would turn out. But those fears were assuaged before the end of the business day. Ultimately, nearly half the voters participating in the election, 48.6%, were GOP voters, in a county where 43.5% of eligible voters are registered as Republicans.

What resulted from this high partisan performance? The School Board races completely turned around. Ziegler won with more than 56%, and Marinelli and Enos won with almost 53%. 

For sentimentality’s sake, let’s consider the old idea that the voting method measures momentum. Based on that, the Democrats were early overperformers, with upward of 10,000 more registered Democrats putting ballots in the mail than Republicans. Things turned around when Republicans outpaced Democrats in early voting more than two-to-one. But the real story comes on Primart day, when more than 28,000 Republicans cast their votes and less than 9,000 Democrats did the same. That’s called a strong finish.

But we know Republicans, since Donald Trump disparaged the practice, have grown distrustful of mail ballots in general. In a real sense, the double-digit swing in advantage in the school board races simply reflects the level of energy around a supposedly non-partisan issue with education. Was it in masking policies during COVID-19? The intense noise around issues like the parents’ bill of rights or critical race theory?

I argued ahead of the Primary this election would test the power of a partisan Governor to rally voters in a nonpartisan election when he wasn’t even on the ballot. I meant that in the truest form. This race would show us something we didn’t know before. The Governor proved his ability to energize voters around something besides himself, a challenge many presidents fail to meet.

The race also showed just the level of frustration that exists around parents’ voices in school, whether you feel that’s justified or not. Groups like Moms for Liberty, which lists Ziegler as a co-founder, charged voters up about school contests in the wake of a pandemic that turned all politics upside down. Now we will see what governance results.

 Jacob Ogles is a contributing senior editor for SRQ MEDIA who has been covering business, politics and community issues for SRQ Magazine and SRQ DAILY since 2008. He also contributes the Under The Hood column which appears in the Saturday Perspectives edition of SRQ DAILY offering a twice-monthly analysis of the driving forces behind Sarasota-Manatee politics.

Graphic shows results before and after Sarasota Primary Day votes were counted. Courtesy Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections.

Over the past few months, we’ve seen some drastic changes in our economy and the end result is that some home buyers are getting pushed out of the market. We’ve seen home prices continuing to rise 20% over last year, interest rates rising by multiple percentage points, and inflation causing families to spend more money on gas and groceries, so they have less in their budgets for their housing. All these factors combine to unfortunately push home ownership out of reach for some families.

While most people understand the supply and demand issues affecting real estate prices, and we’ve certainly heard of supply chain problems and the war in Ukraine causing the prices of goods and services to increase, not everyone understands interest rates and the drastic impact that has on purchasing power.

The rule of thumb is that your total cost of your housing should be no greater than 28% of your gross monthly income. So, a married couple earning a combined $120,000 per year ($10,000 per month), should not pay more than $2,800 per month for their total cost of housing. Now you have to back out of that number the cost of insurance, property taxes and HOA fees. If we estimate those at 15% that leaves $2,380 per month you can spend on your mortgage.

At a 3.5% interest, where rates were just a few months ago for a 30-year mortgage, a monthly payment of $2,380 could get you a $530,000 mortgage. So, you’re looking at buying a home in the $500,000 to $550,000 range. However, at a 5.5% interest rate, where rates were this past July, you can only afford a $419,000 mortgage so you’re buying a $400,000 to $450,000 house. That is a loss of $100,000 in purchasing power. 

When you couple that loss in purchasing power with the fact that homes prices are continuing to rise, many potential home buyers will be priced out of the market.

The interest rates have risen as the Federal Reserve Bank attempted to slow inflation. However, it is important to realize that we have a long way to go before interest rates get to levels seen in the past.  Historically speaking, with interest rates now in the 5-6% range, that is still low compared to the historical average of around 8%. 

Looking over the past few decades, starting in the 1970’s, the interest rate on home mortgages averaged around 9%, then in the early 1980’s it shot up to 16% before settling around a 12-13% average for the decade. In the 1990s the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was around 8% before dropping to just over a 6% average in the 2000s.  

Lastly in the 2010s, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate over the decade dropped to 4.08%.  

And 2010 marked a slow recovery following the Great Recession. Over the last decade, there have been ups and downs, but nothing has rattled the economy like the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, and the Fed responded by resetting interest rates. The 2021 average 30-year fixed mortgage rate drastically fell to 2.96%, the lowest on record, which played part in creating more demand from buyers.

What’s important to realize in all this history, is that homes are permanent while interest rates are temporary. While you may only live in a home for 5-10 years, you are building equity that will transfer to the next home. If rates fall in the next year, you can always refinance your mortgage, while owning your home and are investing in your future.

If the time is right for you to purchase a home, and if the payment from slightly higher interest rates still fits into your budget, it is still a great time to buy.  

Tony Veldkamp is 2022 President of the REALTOR Association of Sarasota and Manatee and a Senior Commercial Advisor at SVN Commercial Advisory Group.