All Housing Crises Are Local

There’s an interesting article at CityLab by Kriston Capps on the implications of national rent control proposals being put forward:

The prospect of a national rent control policy raises the question of whether one size could fit all of America’s housing markets—not just Seattle and New York but also Des Moines and Oklahoma City. It imagines a perpetual crisis of escalating rents for tenants and awesome returns for landlords, when just a decade ago, the opposite was true across the entire country. Indeed, home values still haven’t recovered from the recession everywhere.

A national rent control policy also raises questions about which problems Congress wants to solve. Is it that housing is unaffordable, so we need to build more of it, while protecting vulnerable renters in those neighborhoods where construction is happening? Or is it something larger about the nature of capitalism and the role of shelter as a human right?

While it would be fascinating to dig up the statements from people who object to tariffs but support such broad rent control measures (I assume there are many), I only have one life to live so I won’t dig them up for entertainment.

I would make a number of observations, most of which I would assume are controversial:

• There is no such thing as a national housing crisis. There are hundreds or thousands of state or local housing crises and the safest, best way of addressing them is at the state or local level. Until recently you could buy a house for $1 in Gary, Indiana.
• To whatever extent there is a national housing affordable housing crisis it is a direct consequence of our failure to enforce our borders. Illegal migrants searching for work tend not to seek out the most affordable housing markets but those that are already the most expensive—they’re where the jobs are.
• The proposals so far only address institutional landlords who account for 17% of the market. Is there any evidence that they’re primarily responsible for high rents? I suspect it’s exactly the opposite. There must be some economies of scale in managing multiple properties and at least some of the economic surplus should go to the renters.
• Does national rent control give the most bang for the buck or is just the most centralized solution? There are other solutions to whatever “crisis” exists, e.g. more housing. One way of accomplishing that was used in Toronto a number of years ago which required every new construction to include residential space, commercial space, and parking.