Affordable rental units disappear as landlords sell properties and hedge funds buy up luxury rentals, shrinking supply while demand stays high. The speaker calls for political action: contact elected officials, support independent landlords, and cut regulations blocking affordable housing development.
If I can't make any money on my rents here to keep up with the cost, I'll just sell it. Well, then you've lost 4 affordable units. And you know what comes in usually? Mm-hmm. Those super expensive and new construction things that are either rentals owned by hedge funds that are way out of area, or it just gets sold and demolished and the rentals go away altogether and you have more expensive units, thereby reducing the supply of affordable units while the demand is still high. So what's that do to the cost? You with me, students? It keeps going up. So anytime you read these articles and you start getting frustrated about the cost of housing, I feel you. You should be frustrated. But make sure that you're talking to your elected officials. Tell them stop spending, stop printing money, say yes to more housing opportunities, say yes to a diversity of housing options, and support your mom-and-pop landlords because that's the only affordable rentals left. And we want to make sure that when we support housing, we provide opportunities across the spectrum on the ownership side and on the tenant side, and that we start cutting back on the regulatory meditate that's killing us.
