APARTMENT ADVOCATE
Rent Control Looms Large
E
arlier this month, National
Apartment Association (NAA) Senior
Vice President of Government Affairs
Greg Brown sat down with Tanya Sterling
of GlobeSt for a discussion on the presence
– and passage – of rent control policies
throughout the country. The following is
a digest of their discussion; the original
article is available for complete coverage.
As Americans increasingly choose to call
apartments home, questions surrounding
our nation’s complex housing affordability
crisis are expected to dominate discussions
at every level of government. Too often,
however, lawmakers default to rent control
policies as the one-size-fits-all solution to
their locality or state’s housing crunch.
Unfortunately, these failed policies
do nothing to alleviate the forces driving
increased rents and have never proven
to be viable long-term solutions. Rent
control makes an appealing soundbite
but fails to acknowledge the simple fact
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that housing costs are driven by supply
and demand – these policies increase
demand but do nothing to expand supply,
a fundamental flaw that ultimately hurts
apartment residents and the industry. In
fact, with the long-term profit potential of
apartment homes restricted by rent control,
building new stock becomes less attractive
and developers may choose to leave highly
impacted markets entirely.
NAA can say it unequivocally opposes
rent control, but these policies continue to
appear throughout the nation. Oregon’s
passage of a rent control measure earlier
this year, alongside the California
legislature’s recent approval of statewide
rent control, will almost certainly embolden
forces elsewhere to pursue similar laws
– while California’s legislation may not
be a surprise, the call for rent control
is appearing in unexpected states and
localities.
Despite the wave of rent control
policies, there is an opportunity to
educate lawmakers and citizens alike. With
apartment demand growing, it is obvious
that the market is falling short of needed
supply to keep up – the nation needs to
build 328,000 apartments annually just to
meet current demand. Limiting the influx
of new housing is an unintended, yet costly,
consequence of rent control policies. Rent
control is detrimental to the long-term
health of communities, and we must prepare
to tackle this complex issue with more than
a rent control Band-Aid.
Over 30 years of research, the
industry has witnessed rent control policies
continuously fail to provide relief. Hear
more about viable solutions to America’s
affordability crisis at the GlobeSt.
APARTMENTS conference October 29-30,
where Brown and Robert Pinnegar, NAA
President and CEO, will further discuss
viable solutions to America’s affordability
crisis.
www.aamdhq.org