USA Renters Bill of Rights

[Jazzy]

Biden administration's 'Renters Bill of Rights' to curb housing crisis

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Thoughts?

 

[Messy]

Sounds good.

 

[psalms 91]

Great but still wont do anything about the high cost of rent. I am fortunate to live in a high rise that is federal and rent is controlled.

 

[Lamb]

I thought most of the points in the list from that article were already state laws (at least where I've lived)? I guess it's good to make it national. Psalms 91 brings up a very valid point that it won't help with the rising costs.

I live in a tiny country town and you can't get a 1 bedroom 1 bath apartment for under $1,000. I've seen the places for rent on photos online and they're dumps. I realize that property owners have to raise rates because their taxes go up, costs for repairs are higher these days and what not, but wow, it's crazy how there isn't affordable living for families who are low income. I don't know the answer except to get rich and build tiny homes to give to people

 

[tango]

The trouble, like with so much else, is that the government tinkers with stuff and then complains about the results, only to then try and avoid the inevitable results of their own actions.

When interest rates are very low the price of property rises. When property is expensive rent is expensive. That's the way it is, the landlord has to cover their costs and make a bit of profit or there's no point doing it at all.

When laws require all sorts of things to be done to protect the tenant, someone has to pay for that. One way or another the tenant is the one who pays. It's not inherently a bad thing if, say, the landlord has to make sure that gas appliances aren't pumping carbon monoxide into the living space, it's just not exactly surprising when the cost of having the tests done gets bundled into the rent.

When property taxes rise the tenant ends up paying that too. Likewise when insurance rises and when anything else rises. Keep interest rates low enough so that the price of utilities rises and the tenant gets hit every which way. Then the government gets to complain about "greedy landlords" and try to rein them in.

The problem is that if those "greedy landlords" are driven out of the market the people at the bottom of the economic heap aren't going to gain anything, the properties will just be snapped up by corporate landlords who care even less than a human landlord.

 

[Albion]

It sounds, from the description of the proposal, to be just one more element in Biden's war on America.

The plan cannot work, but it certainly can further drive up the cost of rents that other of the President's policies have produced. The longer-term objective might possibly be to make all rentals be controlled by the federal government.