What if They Made it Illegal to Rent Your House?

The Daily Signal ^ | Nov. 8, 2014 | Tom Steward

[Twotone]

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota cities have circled the wagons in a controversial property rights case that pits municipal authorities against homeowners who are challenging the constitutionality of Winona’s rental ban before the Minnesota Supreme Court.

[ClearCase_guy]

All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.
— Benito Mussolini

Private property?? It’s a quaint sort of of eighteenth century concept. We’re too sophisticated for such stuff now.

[pepsionice]

This is an interesting case. Housing around a local university...locals upset over maturity of “kids” renting the houses or apartments...loud noise likely a product...so the city passes a law that limits neighborhoods around a university to thirty-percent rented out.

Legally, it’d be a first-come-first-serve situation, and likely fail a court challenge....although taking six months to reach that point.

When I lived in Tucson...they had big problems in the center part of town where the university was located and people were renting out houses in this fashion. At some point, some kids got smart...getting a couple thousand from the parents, and buying the house. They graduated from college, and continued to rent the house out year after year.

[MeshugeMikey]

“...no more than 30 percent of homeowners per block to rent their property in the college community.”

the sales of Homes to College Students... is bound to Skyrocket....

[Twotone]

Yes, that really is the only explanation for this kind of thing...limiting property rights. For heaven’s sake, haven’t they heard of noise ordinances? Deal with the trouble-makers & let the rest of the community be!

[doug from upland]

If you choose to buy a home near a dump, it is going to release gasses near you. If you choose to live by a dairy farm, the afternoon smell will have you reeling. If you choose to live next to a river, sometimes it overflows its banks and you get submerged. If you choose to live near a university, there are going to be thousands of partying kids. Maybe complainers should choose to live somewhere else.

Oh, yes. If you choose to live in a liberal dominated city, you will experience high taxes, gangs, illegal alien drivers/voters, and high crime rate. Just sayin’.

[Jonty30]

In my city, a lot of homes in was access of the post-secondary students are owned by the parents while the kids are in school. When the kids pay the parents an affordable fraction of the mortgage while attending school and the parents make a small profit at the end by selling the him after their kids graduate.

[vette6387]

Well, it IS Minnysooota! But you know, it’s getting harder to find the king of the abjectly stupid states. One day you think its New Jersey, then Maryland does something to take away the “title.” But there’s always Minnysooota (as their former governor Jesse Ventura would say). I guess it just stays too cold too long there every year. One thing is certain, being next door to Wisconsin hasn’t helped in any positive way. Sure got to hand it to Wisconsin, being bordered by Illinois AND Minnysooota, they still make their own way.

[Age of Reason]

If you choose to buy a home near a dump, it is going to release gasses near you. If you choose to live by a dairy farm, the afternoon smell will have you reeling. If you choose to live next to a river, sometimes it overflows its banks and you get submerged. If you choose to live near a university, there are going to be thousands of partying kids. Maybe complainers should choose to live somewhere else.

And if you choose to buy a home around which no one is renting, and then the people next door move to a new home and rent their old one to liberals?

[MV=PY]

"What if They Made it Illegal to Rent Your House?"

What if they let property owners decide what to do with their property?

What if people who lived there and didn't like it could move elsewhere?

[Delta 21]

What if they made it mandatory that you had to buy goods and services that had been approved and taxed by them, regardless that their involvement raised the price of the goods and services to a point that you could no longer afford them.

[grania]

deal with the trouble makers and let the rest of the community be!

How about some ordinances that make it easier for landlords to evict renters? That, and holding the owner accountable for renters who break laws would make sense

[doug from upland]

You never know what an individual will do. You do, however, know the ramifications of living near a college or toxic waste dump.

[Hulka]

And have to sell way below value because the neighborhood went into the dumper. . .and they can't afford the loss.

You have a right to rent to anyone. . .too include illegal aliens. . .especially those that are receiving in-state tuition. Just try and NOT rent to an illegal and see what happens. Most places limit the number of non-related adults living in a home, so, that usually helps slow down student migration into a neighborhood.

Interesting note: Was picking from a list of corporate apartments my company offered for a short-term assignment. Went to each apartment complext and found out quickly which ones were chocked full of students and avoided those. Apartment manager would not, could not, tell me if they had a significant amount of students living there. Had to drive by on a Fri/Sat night to get the full experience of the place(s). Found a quiet place, moved in and then shortly thereafter a few of Holder's people moved in and started the ‘thumpa-thumpa’ non-stop noise they call ‘music.’ I had enough, found the apparent leader of the party crowd's black SUV and wrote in the dust-covered rear window: “The police KNOW!!”

The noise went away and the invasion of Holder's people went away. . .they disappeared. Asked the manager and she said they simply went away, never told the manager, left clothes and furniture behind-—HAH!!

[Joe Boucher]

They have done just that in the Florida Keys.

If you rent a home it has to be for a certain amount of time, not a night or two.

[Alberta's Child]

Whenever you have a property owner vs. government conflict like this that doesn't involve eminent domain, it almost always involves residents vs. landlords in areas where rental housing like this has transformed entire neighborhoods.

There's another aspect that has come into play in cases like this one: a growing number of colleges and universities are looking to reduce their on-campus housing, and they're partnering with private real estate developers to build off-campus rental housing instead.

[MV=PY]

"And have to sell way below value because the neighborhood went into the dumper. . .and they can't afford the loss."

This doesn't sound like my kind of neighborhood, so I don't live there. Places change, that's the risk of any real estate (unless you can afford large tracts of land, in which case only the EPA can seize it).

I'll be the first to grant that the free market is far from perfect. However, I think most of the time it beats a bureaucracy trying to do what's best for the "common good."

Note that a free market also means being able to rent to whomever you want. We are pretty far from having any kind of free market these days.

[Hulka]

The right to rent to anyone you want should also include the right to not rent to whoever you want. Sadly, this is not the case.

[Alberta's Child]

There's a town along the Jersey shore where these conflicts between year-round residents and seasonal renters has become a big problem over the years. A recent (maybe still current) mayor implemented a colorful and interesting approach to dealing with endless problems with unsupervised teenagers and college kids causing trouble. The town began publishing a summer newsletter with a weekly "Police Blotter" that listed all of the places -- by street address and property owner -- that had police complaints related to noise, underage drinking, narcotics, garbage disposal, etc. They also adopted a town ordinance that levied heavy fines against the property owner whenever the house was listed in the police report. The fines would escalate over time.

Eventually it got to the point where the property owners began writing provisions into the rental agreements whereby the renter(s) would have to pay any fines associated with their troublemaking, and the only way the owner could guarantee payment would be to demand enough money up front (as part of the deposit) to cover the fine if necessary. When a bunch of young punks has to come up with a $10,000 or $20,000 deposit for a two-week rental, they either find somewhere else to go or they make sure they are on their best behavior.

That actually helped solve the problem. In that particular case any concerns about the property owner's rights weren't much of a factor, for a very important reason: Most of the owners of the rental properties lived out of town, and therefore had no say in the harsh measures the municipal government imposed.

[Wuli]

“The city responded to concerns over neighborhoods with single-family homes being converted to rental properties catering to college students, which can lead to complaints over parking, noisy parties and other issues.”

The issues complained about by the we-know-what’s-best-for-your-private-property city officials are issues for public safety officials and one’s they can easily deal with. None of them require what amounts to a taking of private property.

It would seem that the same city officials complaining about the % of single family houses being rented, have, through restrictive zoning practices, discouraged more multi-unit housing, of the kind that would probably better serve the students.

Of course, on the other side, they are likely dealing also with the issue that they get no property tax revenue from the colleges (I suspect).

Frankly I’m for changing the meaning of “tax exempt/non-profit”; that it should be changed to mean any organization that does not charge any fees for it’s services (it exists on donations or membership dues alone). The educational industrial complex has grown arrogant, fat, lazy, extravagant, politically biased and expensive on its “tax exempt” privileges.