NMHC Toolkit Designed to Stimulate Affordability in Apartment Industry

The multifamily housing industry has reached the point of crisis in many communities where rent rises have surpassed households’ pay raises, straining affordability. Attempts – some of them successful – to enact rent control have cast a dark cloud, and leaders argue that mandatory limits to price increases aren’t a viable solution, now or tomorrow. The problem is compounding a greater challenge, says National Multifamily Housing Council President Doug Bibby. Anticipated demand over the next decade suggests that the apartment industry needs to ramp up its inventory of housing aimed at all rental price points. In recent years, he has wrangled with the increased scrutiny of policymakers of a rental housing boom that has changed the apartment industry. Exclusionary zoning, stifling regulations, rising construction costs and changing consumer preferences for amenities are pushing prices developers must charge to a point where policymakers are paying attention.  Unfortunately, they’re paying attention to the symptoms, not the core problems causing affordability challenges, Bibby says. Rent control – which limits the amount of rent a landlord can charge, either by setting a rent ceiling or limiting rent increases – has been debunked as a failed policy for decades. NMHC and the National Apartment Association are working together in an ongoing fight to sway lawmakers and public perception that rent control has far more negative effects than good ones. And as some states have drawn a line in the sand and implemented or re-enforced existing rent control policies, multifamily developers are facing little relief from high land and construction costs and navigating building codes and local red tape to build more affordable housing. NMHC and others continue to dig in and hold their ground, but Bibby says that isn’t going to be enough. A more holistic approach is the solution. Affordability toolkit a rational approach NMHC...