Housing affordability bill clears Senate as investor ban creates headaches

The Senate on Thursday passed the largest housing affordability bill in 30 years, including a ban on investors from buying single-family homes, with a 89-10 vote.

But the bill faces an upward battle in the House, which passed its own bipartisan legislation in February. House GOP leaders have already said the measure will need to be negotiated, suggesting they will not take up the Senate-passed bill. House Minority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., earlier this week told fellow House Republicans in a closed-door meeting that the measure is likely to bog down over differences between the two chambers’ versions.

One of the biggest issues is a ban on investors and companies from buying single-family homes if they already own 350 or more. Companies that add to the housing supply through building or serious renovations would be able to own more homes, but would need to sell those homes after no more than seven years.

That provision was not initially in the Senate bill, or in the bill the House-passed, but President Donald Trump championed the ban and indicated he wouldn’t sign a bill without it.

Numerous industry groups, including the National Association of Home Builders, Mortgage Bankers Association and National Housing Conference said in a position statement that the seven-year limit would eliminate production of build-to-rent housing and “would take hundreds of thousands of housing units off the market over the next decade, many of which would serve lower- and middle-income households.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., supported adding the institutional investing homeownership limit and said it would protect consumers.

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> One of the biggest issues is a ban on investors and companies from buying single-family homes if they already own 350 or more. <

So I guess 249 would be okay. Because 250 would be a mortal threat to the Republic. Pity the Founders never thought to put that restriction in the Constitution.

In a more serious note, is there anything that the federal government doesn’t want to involve itself in?

MAGA populism increasing federal intervention in housing more than ever in the last generation.

Is it “affordable” when an investor must sell their investor owned houses, kicking out their tenants, tenants who in many cases qualified for their leases but are tenants because they could not afford down payments, closing costs and monthly principle, interest and property taxes on houses for sale at the time?

What is the market share of “investor owned” single family houses? About 1% on average and zero in many markets. What is the actual effect on housing prices due to investor owned properties? In reality they kept some market values up in some places - buying when sellers had fewer buyers who would be owner-occupiers, but had less impact on rising market values in general.

Investor owned properties is NOT THE GIANT CAUSE OF UNAFFORADABILITY. Local and state laws, zoning and regulations are the biggest cause of unaffordability by how they restrict the building of enough new homes to meet demand, resulting in less than needed supply and value increases on existing homes, pricing more of the limited supply out of range of too many buyers. What does that have to to with the federal government - zip, zilch, nada.

The GOP is falling prey to combined Left-Right populism and will in general betray the values that created the MAGA movement.

Thank you for referencing that article DFG.

Housing affordability bill clears Senate as investor ban creates headaches

FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument

This post-17th Amendment ratification Senate housing affordability bill sounds like an election year, vote-winning dog and pony show to me.

Given that Justice Joseph Story and Rep. John Bingham, a constitutional lawmaker, had both indicated that the care of the people is uniquely a state power issue, can anybody tell me which of Congress's constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers reasonably justifies this bill?

10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution [all emphases added], nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The power to regulate manufactures is no more confided to congress, than the power to interfere with [all emphases added] the systems of education, the poor laws, or the road laws of the states. —Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 2, 1833.
The congressional record shows that Rep. John Bingham, a constitutional lawmaker, had clarified the federal government's constitutionally limited powers as follows.
Simply this, that the care of the property, the liberty, and the life of the citizen [all emphases added], under the solemn sanction of an oath imposed by your Constitution, is in the States and not in the federal government. I have sought to effect no change in that respect in the Constitution of the country. —John Bingham, Congressional. Globe. 1866, page 1292 (see top half of third column)
From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added]. —United States v. Butler, 1936.

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