Realtors eye Senate bill to make housing more accessible

CHARLOTTE — One day after the Senate passed a bill to make housing more accessible and affordable, in part by cracking down on corporate landlords, President Donald Trump signed a new executive order to make it easier to build more homes and allow for small banks to provide housing loans.

Channel 9’s Ken Lemon spoke to realtors about how this could help homebuyers. One realtor said home prices in the Charlotte market have shot up in the past five years because housing supply was limited and investors were buying houses to rent.

And when rental prices rose, both ownership and renting became a challenge.

They said the vote in the Senate can start to change that.

It’s one of few bills in recent years to pass with bipartisan support.

And support from those selling homes,

“I’m excited about it,” said Teresa MacFarlane.

MacFarlane owns Rockin Realty, a smaller operation in Gastonia. She said in the past few years, buyers have been shopping for homes alongside investment firms looking to rent out homes.

“[An] individual who is competing against a corporation, that’s like David and Goliath to begin with,” MacFarlane said.

The most talked about part of the Senate bill is a provision that limits investment firms to only 350 homes.

Glenn Kirby is the managing partner of Keller Williams in Fort Mill. He said inventory in the Charlotte market is down dramatically over the past 25 years

“Anything that increases inventory right now is a good thing,” Kirby said.

He said firms outbidding individual owners forced some buyers to stop shopping,

“We should be typically seeing around 5 percent of the general population in the housing market in a given 12-month period. We are seeing right around 1.3 percent right now,” Kirby said.

He said the bill can also help to slow the steady increase in home price.

Lemon asked if passed, when could people see those changes.

“My crystal ball broke in 2008 when the crash of the market,” Kirby said.

That crash was unexpected.

The benefits from the bill, which includes easing regulations on building and encouraging new construction, will come if the House passes the bill and the president signs it.

Both the Senate and House have said a new voter ID law is their top priority.

Mecklenburg County is facing an affordable housing crisis. The county found as of last month, there’s a shortage of more than 32,000 rental units for low-income households making at or below 30 percent of the area median income.

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