White House Proposes Expanded Measures To Help Apartment Renters
President Joe Biden is signaling he will focus on concerns that apartment rents are too high and that affordable housing is in short supply in his re-election campaign this year.
The administration, in addition to proposals aimed at calming the mortgage market and reducing the cost of homeownership, is looking to increase the housing supply with measures aimed at lowering multifamily rents. It’s also targeting what it calls unfair fees that further burden apartment tenants.
“I know the cost of housing is important to you,” Biden said in his annual State of the Union address Thursday night to a joint session of Congress. “Now pass my plan to build and renovate 2 million affordable homes and bring those rents down!”
While national rents grew just 1% in 2023, the latest price hike follows yearly increases that reached double digits across several quarters in 2021 and 2022, according to CoStar data. The bump in yearly prices drove up rents by nearly 16% over those two years, adding an average of $228 to monthly bills.