Opinion editor's note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.
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The housing market has so many data points and moving parts, and is so infrequently in equilibrium, that it's often easiest to oversimplify and declare conditions terrible. It may be why "sky-high" is a favored phrase in articles about rent prices. It may explain why the idea that rent control can help continues to gain momentum.
Some of the latest developments are on the federal level. Last month, the Biden administration announced actions "to protect renters and promote rental affordability." Those mostly revolve around procedures — tenant screening, rules for eviction and the like.
Progressives in Congress think the administration should go "significantly further," in the words of Rep. Jamaal Bowman. The New York Democrat's name was first on the list of signatures on a letter last month to President Joe Biden urging an "end to corporate price gouging in the real estate sector." The other name atop the list was Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and among the signers was Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota's Fifth District.
The letter recommends actions by several federal agencies, notably calling on the Federal Housing Finance Agency to create "anti-price gouging protections" and the Federal Trade Commission to define "excessive rent increases as a practice that unfairly affects commerce." The letter doesn't put a number to "excessive," but the word hints at what could effectively become a national rent control policy.
It's true that rents, like many other prices, have been volatile during the recent period of global inflation. As with inflation generally, rents are moderating at the moment. Year-over-year increases in some markets, as disparate as New York and Nashville, are quite hot. Other markets are starting to see month-over-month declines.
For what it's worth — according to a report compiled by rental-listing aggregator Zumper — the Twin Cities rental market is the nation's 60th most expensive by price, and its year-over-year average rent increase as of January was 3.4% for one-bedroom apartments and 4.6% for two-bedrooms. For comparison, the broad national inflation rate as most recently measured by the Consumer Price Index was 6.5%. Also for comparison, the Twin Cities metropolitan statistical area is the nation's 16th-largest by population.
