TPA Slams New Housing Regulations

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Kara Zupkus (224) 456-0257

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) criticized the Trump administration for imposing costly new regulations on the housing industry. In an Executive Order issued on January 20, President Trump ordered the Attorney General and the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission to “review substantial acquisitions, including series of acquisitions, by large institutional investors of single-family homes in local single-family housing markets for anti-competitive effects and prioritize enforcement of the antitrust laws, as appropriate, against coordinated vacancy and pricing strategies by large institutional investors in local single-family home rental markets.”

Ross Marchand, Executive Director of TPA, slammed the misguided policy:

“This Executive Order has absolutely nothing to do with lowering housing costs. Buying a house is increasingly difficult for millions of Americans, but investors are not the reason why. The reality is that institutional investors own less than 1 percent of houses across the country, and these businesses are increasingly selling—not buying—homes. Meanwhile, the investors most active in the market are small mom-and-pop operations, not massive corporations. Institutional investors are little more than a convenient bogeyman to distract from the real causes of rising home prices.

“The real culprits of the housing affordability crisis are zoning laws and land-use regulations, which make it extraordinarily difficult to get new properties on the market.  Local governments are eager to introduce new limits on density, including single-family-only zoning, building height limits, lot size requirements, and specific land-use types. This out-of-control red tape keeps the number of housing units down, and consumers pay the price.

“Sticking the government on institutional investors may be good PR, but it is terrible policy and will keep investments down and prices high. The government can bring housing prices down, but only by targeting red tape. Less (not more) government interference is the real solution to housing affordability.”

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The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to educating the public through the research, analysis, and dissemination of information on the government’s impact on the economy.