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Bloomberg featured an opinion piece entitled “America Should Become A Nation of Renters” last week. It argued that mega-corporate landlord firms swallowing up single family homes across the country should actually be seen as a good thing.
Nevermind that for most owners, their home serves purposes more important than investment. Their homes are (1) shelter, and (2), the only sphere where they can exercise the freedoms and privacies which result from ownership of a space that is their own.
The article blamed single-family home ownership for causing a paucity of housing:
“[But] existing homeowners are reluctant to agree to development with unknowable effects on the value of their most precious investments. The result is less development — and sky-high rents for any residents not lucky enough to own their own home.”
Corporate landlords have no such worries, apparently.
Regardless, the contention that single-family home owners are to blame for a housing shortage is disingenuous, as anyone who has occasionally attended a local zoning board meeting could attest. “Smart development” plans pushed by elitist funded activist organizations have been a much bigger factor in stymieing new home construction.
Whether the rubric is climate change, open spaces, equity or something else, the consistent objective has been to herd people into clustered “smart city” zones.
But especially since experiencing the mayhem and lockdowns of 2020, people are speaking for something different with their feet. They aren’t opting for urban environments. They’re scrambling to homes in the country, with some land to maybe grow a garden, and some distance from crazies who tore through the country in 2020. And that includes political power mongers who locked the unfortunate non-wealthy into 600 square foot apartments for months on end.
The “Freedom” of Having No Place of Your Own
The Bloomberg piece tried to posit freedom as not owning anything, pointing narrowly to supposed benefits of mobility:
“A nation of renters could lead to a world where location decisions are driven far more by personal preferences and life-cycle demands. Younger workers might prefer the excitement of the city. A couple just starting a family could reunite with their parents or siblings in a small town.”
But homes haven’t generally been a hard sell over the past two decades. That’s partly due to a general shortage of supply. Yes, there was a cratering in home prices during the worst of the Great Recession, from mid-2007 to 2011. But they’ve risen steeply since then.
Meanwhile, home ownership overall has actually trended downward since 2004, apart from a short reversal during Donald Trump’s presidency. From 2004 to 2016, home ownership dropped from 69 percent to 64 percent. It rose to 66% in 2020. In sum, apart from radical lockdowns of the kind Bloomberg endorsed, there’s been plenty of ability for Americans to enjoy all the “mobility” they want.
On the other hand, there’s been a dearth of ability to buy a house and build equity. Single homeowners who did manage to get into the market in say, 2000, have seen their home values increase very appreciably. The Bloomberg piece doesn’t delve into those financials.
Despite those obvious gains for home owners, the article asserted renting is the superior option, not just for some Americans, but for all Americans. In doing so, it managed to ignore its own outlet’s recent reporting that mega-corp landlords are leading the way in squeezing rental prices, leaving average people paying mortgage rates for rentals, and accruing zero equity.
If it all sounds like shades of Klaus Schaab, the Great Reset, and elitist sentiments like “You will Own Nothing. And You Will Be Happy”, that’s because it’s from the same basic playbook.
Bloomberg founder and owner, multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg, was recently outed for paying literally no Federal income tax for several years over the past decade.
Perhaps elites are the ones who should go first in not being allowed to own homes － their own, or any others that can be rented en masse. There’s more at stake in home ownership than just a financial investment. Elites know it. If Americans let home ownership go by the wayside, they will only be that much further along the road to modern serfdom.