Advocacy Report – February 2021

FEBRUARY 2021

Minnesota Realtors® Call for Action

The Minnesota Realtors® (MNR) put out a Call For Action last week. The Call For Action asks that you and other REALTOR® members contact your elected officials in St. Paul, that means the Governor, your State Representative and State Senator, and tell them to support Tax Forgiveness on Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans. The legislation in the Senate is SF 263 with Senator Tom Bakk as Chief Author, and HF 501 in the House, Chief Authored by Rep. Paul Marquart.

Small businesses across Minnesota have been struggling for the last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When the federal CARES Act was passed, it established the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to aid small businesses facing revenue loss during this time. If these loans were used for qualified expenses such as payroll, rent, employee benefits, etc., then the federal government would forgive the loan.

More than 100,000 Minnesota businesses participated in the PPP loan program. If Minnesota doesn’t conform, these struggling businesses will be burdened even further.

Please visit this link (Advocacy - Minnesota Realtors® [mnrealtor.com]) and send a message to your Representatives now, it doesn’t take long at all!

Minneapolis Rent Control

Rent control or “Rent Stabilization” is a government policy that limits the amount a landlord can charge for rent. According to a study by the Urban Institute, 182 municipalities in the U.S. have such a policy, all of which are in New York, New Jersey, California, Maryland, Oregon or Washington D.C. 37 states have measures that forbid rent control policies from being adopted, including here in Minnesota, with the caveat being that such a measure can be brought to the voters for approval.

This is what may happen in Minneapolis. The City Council is looking to implement a rent control measure, and in order to do so they need to amend the City Charter, which requires a vote from Minneapolis residents.

There are not many policies out there for which there is broad support or opposition from economists, rent control is an exception, they mostly agree that the benefits do not outweigh its consequences. The primary reasons for this are that rent control reduces the supply of adequate rental housing, investment in new rental housing development plummets, and maintenance deteriorates because the financial incentives to maintain a quality property are no longer present.

This move from Minneapolis is something to keep an eye on.

Check out the links below for more information!

Minneapolis City Council Members Pushing To Put Rent Control On 2021 Ballot

What Does Economic Evidence Tell Us About the Effects of Rent Control?