Should Have Seen This Coming

Prodded by students, last September legislators in Ann Arbor, Michigan, passed a law that prohibits landlords from showing properties or entering new lease agreements more than 150 days before an existing lease expires. Now the students are complaining that landlords are finding loopholes to get around the ordinance. They should have seen this coming.

One way landlords are doing this is by requiring a fee to be put on a waiting list for housing or to hold a unit until a new lease can be signed. Students are calling this an implicit security deposit and is in violation of the Early Leasing Ordinance.

It shouldn’t be surprising that property owners want to run their businesses as they deem best. Students didn’t like what property owners were doing in the past, and so, they sought to force landlords to act in a manner that the students found acceptable. Landlords responded by searching for ways to circumvent the law. The students should have seen this coming.

When government begins interfering in production and trade, individuals will find ways to produce and trade the values that they desire. Perhaps the most obvious example is prohibitions on cocaine, marijuana, and other drugs. There is a substantial demand for illicit drugs, and the producers of those products have found a variety of ways to circumvent the prohibition. And consumers have found ways to obtain those products.

In Ann Arbor, students are now clamoring for a “right to renew” ordinance that would allow renters the ability to renew a lease regardless of the landlord’s desires. One student leader claimed that property owners are standing between students and housing by “sheer brute force….” She is ignoring the fact that a lease is a voluntary, contractual agreement. Her answer is to use actual brute force against landlords by requiring them to act as the students desire.

Until laws restricting and controlling housing producers are repealed, the housing problem is only going to get worse. It is hard to feel sorry for people who are making their own situation harder. They should have seen it coming.