Bye-Bye Build-To-Rent

Plus: bad arguments in favor of a build-to-rent ban, a tanker plane crash kills four in Iraq, signs the Iran war isn’t going so well, and more…

The bill is essentially an amalgam of two pieces of wonky housing legislation that the House and Senate have been working on for over a year now, and which make a bunch of modest changes to existing regulations and grant programs with the aim of boosting housing supply.

That latter provision likely turns the bill from one that would modestly increase new home construction to one that will significantly reduce new home construction.

Estimates vary, but build-to-rent housing comprises anywhere from 3 to 10 percent of new single-family home construction.

Earlier this week, H.R. 6644 was amended to include a policy that would require large investors to sell any build-to-rent units they own after a period of seven years. This provision is part of the bill’s wider crackdown on large institutional investors owning single-family rentals.

These investors have become a scapegoat for high housing prices among both the right and the left. President Donald Trump called on Congress to ban their ownership of single-family homes in his State of the Union address. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), one of the authors of the Senate housing legislation, was happy to oblige.

The alleged hope was that adding an investor crackdown supported by the White House would get the House to pass the amended H.R. 6644 quickly. That doesn’t seem to have worked.

The House Freedom Caucus has already come out against the bill because of its exclusion of some community banking reforms the House wants, as well as the investor crackdown provisions.

That means it’s likely due for rounds of amendments. Any delay in an election year means it might end up not passing at all.

Why this matters. In response to the bill’s passage in the Senate, anti-market commenters on social media have leapt to defend the effective ban on build-to-rent housing and accuse the ban’s critics of motivated inconsistency.

Reporter Ryan Grim best sums up this attack line in an X post from yesterday, in which he says that housing supply-siders have been downplaying the significance of “private equity” in the single-family market, only to now freak out about the crackdown on build-to-rent housing.

Which is what a ban on build-to-rent housing would do.

There are hundreds of thousands of families out there that would like to live in a new single-family home but do not want, or cannot qualify for, a mortgage. The build-to-rent market has popped up to service this niche of home-seekers.

Unable to meet the needs of single-family renters, investors will thus move their capital elsewhere. Perhaps some of that capital goes into for-sale housing or apartment development—likely, much of the capital leaves the housing market altogether.

Contra Grim, this can be a big deal, despite “private equity” and/or large institutional investors not being a major presence in the single-family market.

As has been pointed out ad nauseam, large investors own less than one percent of single-family homes. They buy maybe two or three percent of single-family homes sold each year. In more recent years, they’ve been net sellers of single-family homes.

The vast majority of homes sold (some 80 percent) are bought by individuals. The rest are purchased by smaller investors, most of whom own less than ten units.

Because large investors buy such a small share of existing single-family homes each year, it doesn’t make sense that they would be the main obstacle to individual families purchasing an existing home of their own.

As mentioned, in addition to buying existing homes, large investors also finance and own build-to-rent communities that would not exist otherwise. Estimates vary, but build-to-rent housing comprises between 3 and 10 percent of new single-family homes built each year.

Banning build-to-rent housing would thus result in a significant reduction in new home development. One can understand why housing supply-siders would object to such a policy, particularly since it’s being included in a bill intended to boost the rate of new home construction.

One needn’t resort to conspiracy theories to explain the backlash on social media.

Scenes from D.C.: After a balmy 86-degree day on Wednesday in our nation’s capital, it snowed yesterday.

QUICK HITS

• You can tell the Iran war is going well when leaks start claiming Vice President J.D. Vance opposed it all along.
• A tanker plane has crashed in Iraq, killing four service members.
• Consumer prices were already on the rise before the Iran war choked off Gulf oil supplies.
• New York City considers a $30 minimum wage.
• I’ve seen worse ideas.

Reporter, Reason

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