Should You Be Worried About the Renters Bill of Rights?

HFO joined the many other multifamily industry stakeholders who were disappointed by the release of the White House's "Renters Bill of Rights." Multi-Housing News spoke to several industry leaders about the document's shortfalls and potential impacts, including: 

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  It places responsibility for the current crisis primarily on landlords and unnecessarily deepens the divides between renters, owners, and operators. “The fundamental problem with the blueprint is that it conceptualizes the landlord-tenant relationship as a zero-sum game,” Alexander Lycoyannis, a veteran attorney with Rosenberg & Estis, a New York City-based real estate law firm, told MHN. “Underpinning the blueprint is the idea of ‘rights’ in rental housing as a fixed pie, with renters being entitled to a greater proportion of the pie than they currently have, and [the] owners’ piece of the pie reduced.”
  
  
• It fails to acknowledge supply-related housing challenges. “The administration’s blueprint ultimately fails to address the root of affordability challenges: a shortage of housing supply at all price points,” said Nicole Upano, assistant vice president of housing policy and regulatory affairs at the National Apartment Association.
  
  
• New regulations could hike costs and impede much-needed development. “It was disappointing to see this week’s announcement, which really didn’t include any agency action that would expand supply and, in fact, will only serve to worsen affordability by adding costly and complex regulations,” said Sharon Wilson Géno, president-elect of the National Multifamily Housing Council. “Rent stabilization policies have been proven, time and time again, to result in significantly less investment in communities where it has been implemented, further exacerbating the housing problems which drive up cost." 
  

Read more at Should You Be Worried About the Renters Bill of Rights? – Multifamily Real Estate News (multihousingnews.com)