Let’s celebrate Senate passage of a housing bill
The vote on Tuesday was 85-5, the House is expected to act on Tuesday, and President Trump backs the bill.
What?! Actual near unanimity on actual legislation to help the American people?
The bill aims to reduce federal regulations and expand local control and is one of the most sweeping efforts in recent decades to increase housing supply and bring down prices, says The Associated Press.
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, contains almost 60 individual provisions to tackle housing affordability and supply, says Politico.
The bill “acknowledges that the federal government has a role to play in lowering housing prices,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., tells AP. “For the first time ever, private equity will be blocked from buying up single-family homes and trying to turn housing into one more Wall Street investment.”
An Atlantic article in December said the housing shortage has many causes other than private equity: restrictive zoning codes, arcane permitting processes, excessive community input, declining construction productivity, expensive labor, and expensive lumber.
But, since private equity began buying up homes after the 2008 financial crisis, its role in some markets has become significant, The Atlantic says.
One in 11 residential real-estate parcels in the 500 urban counties with data robust enough to analyze is owned by corporations, according to a report from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Center for Geospatial Solutions. And in some communities, they control more than 20 percent of properties.
“They’re pulling all the starter homes off of the market in low-income, high-minority-density neighborhoods,” says George McCarthy, president of the Lincoln Institute.
”While not all corporate landlords are bad landlords, some are bad landlords,” says The Atlantic. “Corporations are more likely to threaten to evict and to actually evict their tenants. They are also prone to skimping on maintenance and upkeep.”
Here is a 7-minute video of Warren titled “Private Equity's Housing Takeover. We Need to Get Them Out.”
And here are FAQs on private equity in housing, from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project.
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House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer
Senate Majority Leader John Thune