Blog

Having spent 40 years in the real estate business, I know firsthand the hardships some people go through when it comes to paying rent. Hardships do happen, and facing eviction is a real concern for some. It’s not anything to be discounted or taken lightly.

Yet like so many other things, big government has made the problem worse.

Almost a year ago, President Trump and the CDC announced a residential eviction moratorium on renters who were behind on their payments. Various rules and conditions applied, of course, but the idea was to help ease housing concerns during the height of the pandemic.

The federal government also threw billions of dollars at state and local governments for rental assistance. But most states obviously didn’t have the capacity to immediately start processing or verifying rental assistance claims. That’s a monumental undertaking that was destined to fail from the start – thanks Uncle Sam – which is why only 12% of the $25 billion approved for rental assistance has been distributed so far.

So once again, big government just created a mess. The original moratorium was set to expire at the end of 2020, but remember no federal government program ever dies that easily. President Biden immediately extended the moratorium once he took office and a few more times since then.

Ultimately, a federal judge ruled the moratorium exceeded the CDC’s authority. And the Supreme Court also weighed in. The program was set to expire on July 31^st, until a couple of Democrat activists in Congress applied enough public pressure last week that Biden extended the moratorium again, this time in defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court. It was an abuse of executive power that will almost certainly go down in defeat.

What’s not getting enough attention in this debate is the financial DEVASTATION that’s been brought on hundreds of thousands of small landlords. These aren’t large companies with millions in the bank. Most of these property owners use their rental(s) to help make ends meet, provide for their families, or invest for retirement. Going a year+ without rental income, and being prohibited from replacing tenants who can’t or won’t pay, puts those property owners in jeopardy of financial ruin.

It’s not right. And for the government to extend this moratorium any further is horrible policy. It’s not just harming these small landlords. It will also hurt renters going forward, because landlords will almost certainly have to raise rent for the foreseeable future to recover from these losses, and insure themselves against the next government overreach.