NEWS HEADLINES

NMHC Blasts Failures of Federal Housing Policy

Reacting to the White House announcement that interest rates would be frozen on some risky home mortgages last week, the nation’s primary association of apartment owners lashed out at the federal government for failing to enact a “balanced housing policy.”

Doug Bibby, President of the National Multi Housing Council (NMHC), said “The current situation in the housing market ... was completely foreseeable and preventable. For decades the government has pursued a “homeownership at any cost” housing policy. They, like other participants in the housing sector, mistakenly assumed that prices would always go up. They enticed people into houses they could not afford, and they forgot the rarely spoken truth that there is such a thing as too much homeownership. Now we are seeing the consequences of that misguided policy. For years, we and others have been predicting this meltdown. We have been warning policy makers that pushing homeownership so aggressively could be disastrous not only for the hardworking Americans lured into unsustainable homeownership, but also on our local communities and our national economy.

Bibby called on the federal government to “recognize its own mistakes and ensure that this doesn't happen again. And that means, among other things, recognizing that homeownership isn't the right housing choice for all households at all points in their lives. Housing our diverse nation well means having a vibrant rental market along with a functioning ownership market. It's time we adopt a balanced housing policy that doesn’t measure success solely by how much homeownership there is.”