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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Happening in Virginia also:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/12/02/virginia-budget-taxes-spanberger-youngkin/

This will be a nationwide problem.[/quote]

Maybe, but MoCo's rent control legislation and inability to attrach any private business to the county certainly compound the issues there.  (Read the article linked).  [/quote]

Please. That guy blames everything on rent control. The fact is that rents are down. The economy has had the biggest impact on rents and rent control maybe had a little effect by capping the increases and making the average come out better. Lack of private business growth is also driving down rents.

But regardless of cause rents are down and no one is going to build new apartments while rents are down. Meanwhile, there’s a townhouse boom the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long time. At least one project converted from apartments to townhouses before breaking ground. That’s great for prospective owners.

Falling property valuations wouldn’t be such a problem if Andrew Friedson’s charter amendment hadn’t passed. His charter amendment let the county gorge on rising valuations but now that valuations are falling they’ll need to vote unanimously just to maintain the part of the property tax that goes to things other than schools. He’s set up a pretty tough vote for himself right before the primary, especially because he’s given his donors big tax breaks the past few years. Oops![/quote]

The MoCo Planning Department disagrees with you. It is “recommending the county change its “rent stabilization” law, saying it has had a chilling effect on housing development.”
https://www.thebanner.com/economy/growth-development/housing-shortage-montgomery-county-permitting-QZQYF25PBFGJRCDULPPKTKYI24/[/quote]

Oh no! Not Planning! I’m soooo scared now.

Just kidding. Planning did nothing more than developers and printed what they said. Not all the developers said rent control and not all the developers even responded.

If I were a developer and demand were too soft to build new units I also would blame regulations that I hated to see if elected officials were gullible enough to bite on more de-regulation. But that doesn’t mean we should believe them.

I thought lowering rents was the main goal of the YIMBY programs and now rents are falling. Every community that has succeeded in lowering rents has had development tail off. Rental construction is slowing all over the country, and it’s not like Rockville and Gaithersburg, which don’t have rent control, are issuing bunches of new permits.

Personally I think it’s great to see more supply of townhouses for purchase because we get more density than detached SFH give and the new townhouses are correcting a supply and demand mismatch that’s been building for some time. [/quote]

Rental construction is slowing because young people with college degrees, no kids and a lot of disposable income would rather live in Arlington, Alexandria or DC than a county with a bunch of old people, poor migrants, crumbling infrastructure, hardly any nice bars or places to go out at night, which is far away from any big job centers.

To stay economically viable you have to prioritize making your jurisdiction attractive to people who provide more tax revenue for your jurisdiction than they consume. Young UMC people are those people. Instead the county spends its time bragging about the retirement homes and low income housing its building. It’s no mystery it’s in the financial situation it’s in. [/quote]

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