As landlords, private equity firms raise rents, impose new fees, skimp on property maintenance and pursue tenants more aggressively in court, the Americans for Financial Reform research noted. “The cumulative effect is a massive transfer of wealth from mainly low- and middle-income renters, who can’t afford the onerous barriers to homeownership, to some of the wealthiest men in America,” it said.
On Friday, the U. S. Department of Justice took on Wall Street landlords and increasingly unaffordable rents by filing an antitrust lawsuit against RealPage, accusing the private-equity-owned firm of facilitating price fixing among the country’s largest corporate landlords. Joined by eight state attorneys general, the lawsuit details how RealPage’s rent-setting software uses private information to raise rents – and, by extension, landlord profits – well beyond what is fair to the general public.
Today, President Biden acknowledged what too many Americans already know: the rent is simply too damn high and the public cannot continue to subsidize corporate landlords’ unlimited appetite for rent hikes through our tax code. By proposing to repeal tax breaks, like the depreciation write-off for corporate landlords who stick their tenants with rent increases above 5 percent, Biden is taking a vital step toward direct action to curb the corporate profiteering that contributes to the housing crisis.
An intricate network of housing industry groups, often backed by corporate landlords, are actively blocking solutions that would alleviate the worst aspects of the current housing crisis and improve affordability, according to a new report. The report, from Capital Strategies for the Common Good, the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, Bargaining for the Common Good, and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, sheds light on the money behind the political influence that has distorted the politics of housing in favor of wealthy interests.
AFREF, in partnership with Capital Strategies for the Common Good, the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, and Bargaining for the Common Good, have produced a report highlighting how, in recent decades, housing has become increasingly commodified and financialized, while tenants in communities across the country are being crushed under unsustainable rent burdens and a shortage of affordable housing.
AFR joined the Consumer Federation of America and 18 other civil rights, housing, and climate advocacy groups in writing this letter to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners regarding the need for a public, transparent, and national data collection on the property and casualty insurance market.
Jake Bittle and The Great Displacement: a Conversation about Housing Displacement and Climate Change On September 26, 2023 Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund hosted Jake Bittle, author of “The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration” along with housing experts and community
AFREF and the National Housing Law Project submitted a comment to the FHFA in support of their proposed revisions to the Suspended Counterparty Program.
View or download a PDF of the letter here Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund joined the Homes Guarantee Campaign and over 300 national, state, and local organizations to call on the Federal Housing Finance Agency to require tenant protections in order to receive federal
“We have to think much more deeply as a society about how we view housing and whose interests are worth protecting the most,” [Caroline] Nagy, [senior policy analyst at AFR] said. “Looking at our tax and finance policy and seeing that we’re incentivizing the exact opposite is a very difficult, problematic place to be in.”