NMHC Statement on Reporting that the Biden Administration Will Announce National Rental Control
July 15 2024 - 5:45PM
Business Wire
This afternoon the Washington Post reported that President Biden
will tomorrow announce a new proposal to cap rents nationally. This
campaign season rhetoric will do nothing to lower housing costs or
broaden housing opportunity. Indeed, instituting national rent
control will drive up housing costs and limit the building of new
and badly needed housing at the same time communities across the
nation are facing a housing affordability crisis.
“This legislative proposal will not create a single new unit
while raising costs on the very residents it purports to help,”
said NMHC President Sharon Wilson Géno. “If the administration’s
goal is to lower housing costs and support residents it would be
better advised to implement policies that expand housing supply -
the only real way to sustainably lower housing costs and create
more housing security for renters as the Biden administration
pointed out in its very own Housing Supply Action Plan. Rent
control has been tried for decades and been a resounding failure.
Now is the time for actual solutions, not electioneering.”
Decades of academic research from across the United States and
around the world clearly show that rent caps – more commonly known
as rent control – reduce the supply of available housing and fail
to target those renters who need help the most while simultaneously
harming other residents and the communities they reside in. Rent
control has also been proven to reduce the quality of housing.
As Jason Furman, a top economist in the Obama administration and
now a professor at Harvard University said in the Washington Post
article:
“Rent control has been about as disgraced as any economic policy
in the tool kit. The idea we’d be reviving and expanding it will
ultimately make our housing supply problems worse, not better.”
Going forward, NMHC and our members will strongly oppose this
federal rent control while offering real solutions to increase
housing supply, broaden opportunity and lower housing costs.
Based in Washington, D.C., the National Multifamily Housing
Council (NMHC) is where rental housers and suppliers come together
to help meet America’s housing needs by creating inclusive and
resilient communities where people build their lives. We bring
together the owners, managers, developers and suppliers who provide
rental homes for 40 million Americans from every walk of
life—including seniors, teachers, firefighters, healthcare workers,
families with children and many others. NMHC provides a forum for
leadership and advocacy that promotes thriving rental housing
communities for all. For more information, contact NMHC at
202/974-2300, email the Council at info@nmhc.org, or visit NMHC's
website at nmhc.org.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240715022124/en/
Colin Dunn 202/974-2370 cpdunn@nmhc.org