A Rental Crisis?

The Bipartisan Policy Center released an “infographic” arguing that there is an imminent shortage of rental housing. “Five to six million new renter households will form over the next ten years,” says the “graphic” (quotations used because it really isn’t that graphic), but a “slowdown in new construction . . . means rental market conditions are tight.”

Click to download the entire infographic.

The group buys into the notion that an increasing number of people want to rent rather than buy. Yet it is more likely that the sagging economy combined with housing prices that are still too high in many states are preventing people from buying even though they would prefer to do so.


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A previous infographic suggests there is a “growing mismatch” between the number of homes that may come up for sale as baby boomers age and the number of buyers for those homes because the “echo boomers” are smaller in number. Yet the population of the country is still increasing faster than most other developed nations, partly due to immigration, so that mismatch is more a figment of the group’s imagination.

These distinctions are important. Although the group does not urge any particular government action, many urban planners have taken upon themselves a mission of building more multifamily housing (which is typically rented) and discouraging single-family housing (which is typically owned), and the Bipartisan infographics lend credence to this policy.

In the long run, as long as government stays out of the way, builders should have no problem meeting whatever demand isn’t already met by existing housing stock. Although the first infographic frets that “it will take some time before apartments are ready for occupancy,” that time can be minimized by minimizing government regulation. In Houston, for example, a builder can buy land, get permits, build a multi-family dwelling, and have it ready for occupancy a mere 120 days after closing on the land.

The best policy to deal with potential shortages or surpluses of single-family, multi-family, rental, or owner-occupied housing is for states to deregulate land use. The group’s first housing infographic laments the swings in the nation’s economy that have resulted from volatile housing demand. It’s too bad the policy center didn’t take the effect of land-use regulation on this volatility into account when it put together its infographics.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

5 Responses to A Rental Crisis?

  1. bennett says:

    “…many urban planners have taken upon… discouraging single-family housing …”

    I would state this as “a select few vocal opponents of single family living at the CNU.” Most professional planners working for city planning departments do not want to limit or discourage single family living. Many (like me) would also agree with Mr. O’Toole’s assessment that traditional land use regulation (euclidian zoning) is not the answer and that slight deregulation of land use would have positive impacts. However, much to many antiplaiiners chagrin, this will likely lead to the proliferation of multifamily dwelling units.

  2. Dan says:

    “…many urban planners have taken upon… discouraging single-family housing …”

    I would state this as “a select few vocal opponents of single family living at the CNU.”

    I would state it as “a few planners is not many”, but your point about CNU is correct. :o)

    BTW, Randal, the ‘Reply’ button does not work in these forms.

    DS

  3. Craigh says:

    I remember, back in the seventies, that the prognosticators were very worried that the just-then-coming-of-age Baby Boomers faced a gloomy future because all the shares of stock were owned by their parents’ generation and, thus, they wouldn’t have any means of investing in their future.

    I swear it’s true. I heard it on the news at the time and — young skull full of mush that I was — worried, too.

    Turns out, it’s one of those things markets take care of! As will, I suspect — if allowed — the purported shortage of future rentals.

  4. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    The Antiplanner wrote:

    The group buys into the notion that an increasing number of people want to rent rather than buy. Yet it is more likely that the sagging economy combined with housing prices that are still too high in many states are preventing people from buying even though they would prefer to do so.

    Though it seems that there is a decent amount of foreclosed inventory in many U.S. markets that will be or should be for sale.

    These distinctions are important. Although the group does not urge any particular government action, many urban planners have taken upon themselves a mission of building more multifamily housing (which is typically rented) and discouraging single-family housing (which is typically owned), and the Bipartisan infographics lend credence to this policy.

    I disagree with one important aspect of the paragraph above (and I have said this before, so pardon me for being repetitive). The planners work for elected officials who ultimately make these decisions. I am not expressing agreement with planners who promote the construction of apartments for other people to live in, but I do believe that most of the fault lies with county and municipal elected officials who seem to think that building apartments (and putting large swaths of vacant and developable land off-limits for new construction) will solve housing and transportation problems (it won’t).

  5. Sandy Teal says:

    Maybe when the government gets done deciding how many apartments and single homes that the public wants, it can move on to deciding how much toilet paper and toothpaste should be produced.

    Here are some interesting historical photographs of a country that tried that system.

    http://www.readability.com/read?url=http%3A//www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255693/Last-pictures-life-iron-curtain-collapse-USSR.html

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