As a former attorney general for the great state of South Carolina, I am concerned about how intent the Biden administration is on undercutting the significant progress our state has made in reducing apartment prices.
In South Carolina, we understand that supply and demand drive the housing market. So, when our home prices started rising, many areas of our state built more housing, which in turn lowered costs rapidly. North Carolina, as a fast-growing state, is also busy building housing to keep up with demand.
The Charlotte North Carolina-South Carolina metro region is leading this building revolution. Even though rent prices have increased close to record levels, data released last month shows that, between mid-2023 and mid-2024, the area experienced an over 5% decrease. Only six other metro areas had a steeper decline in rent. Although the Biden administration’s new, costly energy standards for homes and other regulations haven’t made it easy for the city, the Carolinas have still found ways to support their local builders.
Yet, the Biden administration is at it again. It is meddling in the housing industry in ways that will make it difficult for South Carolina’s local builders to continue doing what they do best.
The Biden administration’s Department of Justice is reportedly poised to move forward with a rental-market collusion lawsuit. It is seeking to sue the property-management software companies our landlords use to help price their apartments and units because, according to President Biden, landlords are breaking antitrust laws by “price fixing to keep the rents up.”
These tools do not change the marketplace’s conditions. They just report on those conditions — the good and the bad — letting landlords use that information as they see fit.
That is why, although apartment prices are still very high in some areas of the country, they are declining in places like Charlotte — because this software facilitates the operation of the free market.
The Biden DOJ taking legal action against these companies will discourage our region’s entrepreneurs and investors from continuing to finance new building projects. And we know what tends to happen when supply decreases — prices rise.
President Biden’s antitrust regulators already have a dismal track record. Its Federal Trade Commission has yet to win a single antitrust case, and many of its senior-level staffers — Democrats and Republicans — have resigned out of frustration with its reckless behavior. Some staffers have even said that the Biden administration is putting political concerns on the front burner and the rule of law on the back burner.
Politicizing justice is never a good thing. It needs to end. But rather than end, it’s snowballing.
Some attorneys general from other states have followed the DOJ’s activism against this technology with suits of their own. Some of them may even sign onto forthcoming DOJ action.
The Honorable Alan Wilson, South Carolina’s current attorney general, won’t make the same mistake. He is an astute decisionmaker and a strong proponent of federalism. He knows that the Charlotte area’s more-laissez-faire-minded approach to housing is working and understands the Biden administration’s reckless counter solution will undercut our state’s progress.
I fully expect Attorney General Wilson to resoundingly reject the political pressure that the administration is imposing on him in short order. I wish I could express the same confidence in North Carolina’s attorney general, Josh Stein, on this matter.