Similar Posts
Friday Roundup 10-22-22
Charlie Simms, the owner of a development company in Ohio, makes a point that needs to be included in discussions regarding affordable housing. Housing advocates consider affordable housing to mean below market rate housing. However, as Simms writes, “When builders and developers speak of affordable housing we’re talking about how to build homes that the…
Protecting Property Rights is Moral and Practical
Shortly after taking office, Argentina President Javier Milei issued an executive decree that repealed the country’s rent control laws along with a host of other economic regulations. The results were predictable and almost immediate. The supply of rental housing soared, and prices significantly declined. Protecting property rights is moral and practical. Introduced in 2020, Argentina’s…
“Solutions” without the Full Context, Part 3
A recent article on The Conversation asserts that “building more homes won’t solve the affordable housing problem for the millions of people who need it most.” While the authors acknowledge that we need more housing, they don’t believe that this is a sufficient solution. The authors present numerous facts to bolster their argument, but these…
The Market isn’t the Failure
Housing advocates frequently claim that the housing crisis represents a market failure, which Investopedia defines as an inefficient distribution of goods and services in the free market. In market failure, the individual incentives for rational behavior do not lead to rational outcomes for the group. In other words, each individual makes the correct decision for…
Throwing Mom and Pop Under the Bus
Politicians and housing activists often blame greedy corporate landlords as a primary cause of rising housing costs. They then demand more controls and restrictions, including rent control, on rental property owners. The politicians and activists conveniently ignore the fact that more than 40 percent of rental housing is owned by individual investors, so-called :mom and…
Should Have Seen This Coming
Last November, voters in St. Paul approved a measure to impose rent control on housing producers. The law went into effect on May 1, and the results are precisely what should have been expected. In March, before the law was in effect, building permits for multi-family housing were down 80 percent from November 2021 to…