When I first heard that Representative Ellen Reed (D-Newmarket) was sponsoring a bill that would allow cities and towns to enact emergency rent controls, without any public comment, it struck me as an example of government overreach — dictating how much landlords can charge when, in many cases, they are facing huge increases in property taxes and maintenance expenses — and I was inclined to agree with the real estate lobbyists who adamantly opposed the measure because it would not address the principal cause of high housing prices: a shortage of housing inventory. What is needed is more housing, and not the type of housing that planning and zoning boards have been approving, the huge second homes that do not require much in the way of town or city services. The need is for affordable housing for service industry workers who often have children who will attend public schools. Otherwise the state will continue to see an out-migration of young people, leaving no one to fill vacancies at restaurants, schools, and public safety departments.
Columnist Garry Rayno raised a good point, though: Approving and building new workforce housing can take years, but that won’t help those now facing eviction from an apartment he or she has lived in for years so the landlord or a new owner of the apartment building can renovate it and double or triple the rent — or not make any improvement but raise the rent anyway. During the pandemic, when housing prices rose at unprecedented rates, and rental vacancy rates dropped to less than 1 percent, apartment buildings became a good investment. Overpaying to purchase a building is not a problem if you can raise the rent high enough and fast enough to satisfy loan requirements. Also exascerbating the problem are investors who are purchasing rental properties in tourist areas or college and university towns and turning them into short-term rentals, which reduces the number of long-term rental properties.
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