Poll: If you had to, could you successfully re-rent or re-buy your current home at market rate? [View all]

[Baobab]

Thank you, basically that is the question.

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Some context- my theory is that Americans are actually much poorer than we think we are and that this poverty is concealed because many people are paying below market rate for their current housing, but if they had to move they could not afford to.

That is a time bomb waiting to happen, if for example, energy prices went up a lot due to natural gas export (projected as part of a pending trade deal) and cities lost their "rent stabilization" regulations. (It is hard to see how affordable housing could be preserved in cities if the cost of energy jumps up a lot, suddenly)

Housing is a scarce resource and many right wingers feel that the existing populations of cities are preventing their economic development and basically want them to move elsewhere so that new tenants can live there at market rate. For a ong time rent stabilization regulations have been a target of their anger, because they tie rent of a specific apartment to the CPI plus some small amount, for a specific tenant. However, that affordable apartment is limited to that specific apartment. This arrangement is a vastly inadequate substitute for public housing which was basically outlawed in 1994 in countries that signed on to GATS.

A series of bad Supreme Court decisions (for example, Kelo v. City of New London - 2006,) now allows condemnations under eminent domain to allow real estate development for profit. However, neighborhoods have to be designated as blighted first. A sudden spike in the cost of natural gas might be argued to cause older buildings (which one never sees in the rest of the world where energy prices are much higher) to be designated as blighted (and presumably replaced by market rate condo housing with some small portion set aside for 'low income' displaced property owners, (other provisions might be set up for property owners who are disabled).

The outcome of the election will probably decide if that is done.