Pension funds that provide a secure retirement for workers around the country have the potential to help alleviate the nation’s housing crisis by investing directly in efforts to ease the terrible shortage of homes, according to a new report, Investing for the Common Good: How Workers’ Pensions Can Help Solve the Housing Crisis.
Last month’s settlement agreement with Invitation Homes confirms what their tenants have been telling us: our country’s largest landlord of single family homes has a consistent track record of ripping off its tenants.
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.
The climate threat is growing. So is the cost of protecting our homes from its damage. Two weeks ago, Hurricane Milton rapidly intensified in Florida, demonstrating the terrifying magnitude that climate change-fueled extreme weather events can reach. Across the country, the growing frequency and intensity of wildfires, hurricanes, and even thunderstorms will require a new approach to insuring homes and communities.
The Treasury Department released two new rules requiring the disclosure of real estate ownership transparency that will make it easier to identify corporate real estate backers and crack down on money laundering in the real estate sector. This announcement comes the week after the Department of Justice launched a lawsuit against RealPage for facilitating rent price fixing by corporate landlords, and together represent major back-to-back tenant victories against corporate landlords and their privately-funded financial backers
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.