CDC Moratorium Extended

[Robert Johnson]

The CDC extended the eviction moratorium through June.  That's incredibly horrible policy and the after effects will impact tenants who refuse to pay their rent.  It's the greatest property grab and asset seizure in human history.  Many leases are coming up for renewal and it's not clear if that's the end in some jurisdictions.   All that will happen now is landlords will demand bigger deposits, better credit and perhaps month to month leases.

[Matt Tucker]

The NAA does represent landlords and has lobbied heavily here.  It was great to see that a Federal judge yesterday declared the moratorium had exceeded the authority of the CDC.  The free market would really have solved this problem naturally, if it had been able to operate freely.  Most landlords would prefer not to evict good residents who were smacked by this pandemic.  Unfortunately, things like rent control (in many big cities) have created an atmosphere where landlords can't get a fair return on their investment until a tenant moves out...so, while most landlords would prefer not to evict tenants, landlords who were currently collecting rents at 50%+ below market because of rent control, figured it was better to have a vacant unit for a few months (or a year) than to stay below market for potentially 20+ more years.  This is a perfect example of how bad initial legislation required MORE bad legislation to band-aid itself.  The government had no business intervening in private business, but they knew that many people were at risk of being evicted because of other legislation that they had no business enacting in the first place.  Free market is always the best long-term plan, but our "immediate gratification" culture won't allow the time necessary for it to work itself out.