There is a housing crisis in America. Housing prices have skyrocketed (although they have come down slightly and the real estate market has cooled as interest rates have increased). Rents are going up and inflation is making it difficult for people to pay their rents. This will eventually work itself out, but unfortunately, the government is planning to get involved.
On Wednesday, Hot Air posted the following headline, “First step towards national rent control? Biden admin to mandate “fairness”” Government “fairness” has a way of not being fair.
The article reports:
If you’ve been renting, especially a single-family house vice an apartment, you’ve been on pins and needles the entire time, not knowing if it would be sold out from under you if the owner decides to cash in on good times, vice continues to deal with tenants. Almost every aspect has been fraught with anxiety for all concerned.
A good portion of this is attributable to measures taken (with questionable authority) by the Centers for Disease Control. In an unprecedented order on 1 September 2020, the CDC brought an immediate – and “temporary” – halt in residential evictions to “prevent the further spread of COVID-19.” Congress and then the Biden administration extended that order through various incarnations for another year, claiming a surge in Delta variant infections justified it.
What is being overlooked here is that fact that even if t he renter cannot affort to pay his rent, the homeowner is still required to pay his mortgage.The renter may not be evicted, but the owner is in danger of foreclosure.
The article concludes:
Also, please note – there’s nothing about independent landlord protections. Who is going to want to rent their home to anyone and face not getting paid with the government’s stamp of approval? Here people were, hoping for rents to start easing off some and housing to open back up. ‘Tis to laugh.
The government’s going to sanction both non-payment of rent and pay for the scofflaw’s lawyers? As the landlord is also a taxpayer, you could look at it that he’s getting shafted twice in this deal.
Well, hello. There’s another house sold to Blackrock for cash.
We need to look at any government interference against the free market as an attack on our freedom and treat it as such.