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If Americans took away one lesson from the housing crash,it"s that a house is not always a Treasury bond. In thelatest Fannie Mae survey on attitudes toward housing, only 56 percent of respondents saythey consider a home a safe investment—that"s down from83 percent in 2003. RELATED: 12 Markets Where It"s Better to Rent As thousands of foreclosed homeowners have transitioned toapartment living, renting has acquired a certain cool. The number of renters has jumped 16 percent since 2004 to almost 106 million, accordingto Census figures. Apartment communities catering to millennialsthat resemble destination living are popping up in cities like Dallas, offering swimming pools,chain restaurants, volleyball courts, and other amenities. Thenumber of permits for construction of multifamily housing units(the majority of which are rental apartments) soared 61 percentbetween the first-quarter of 2011 and first-quarter of 2012. Though renters" numbers have surged, their political clouthasn"t. Homeowners receive numerous tax benefits unavailableto renters, including the mortgage interest deduction, home saledeductions, property tax deductions, and tax-free capital gains. Of the federal housing subsidies in 2009, 79 percent went tohomeowners and 21 percent to renters, according to the NationalMulti-Housing Council. In Washington, the major players on nationalhousing policy are groups like the National Association ofRealtors, the National Association of Homebuilders, and theMortgage Bankers Association, which go to bat for homeowners, notrenters. Sixty-year-old Bill Deegan says he"s out to change that. Atwo-time town councilman and former host of the radio show"Renter Nation" on Phoenix station KFNX, Deeganlaunched a free-membership organization last month, also calledRenter Nation, that aims to advocate for renters. The group"s motto is "by, for, and aboutAmerica"s residential renters," and so far, Deegan andhis team have been busy mobilizing renters through social media,and reaching out to media in an effort to break down stereotypes ofanyone who sends checks to a landlord. For example, on June 1 they issued a news release criticizing theupcoming Spike TV series World"s Worst Tenants and urgedadvertisers to reconsider their support. The Fiscal Times recentlytalked with Deegan on the changing landscape of renting. The Fiscal Times (TFT): How did Renter Nation start? Bill Deegan (BD): I was in my car one day in early 2009 listeningto a story about proposed bailouts for existing homeowners and taxcredits for new owners. And I"d been reading about people whostay in their homes literally for years without making a mortgagepayment before foreclosure. Being a renter, I know that if youdon"t pay, you"re often out in a month. I thought thisisn"t right, this isn"t fair, so I decided that I wasgoing to call whoever advocates for renters nationally and givethem my two cents. Lo and behold, I discovered that there was nosuch group. So I decided to start one myself. TFT: What do you want to accomplish? BD: We want to empower renters. Our website gives practicalinformation like how you get your security deposit back and what todo about noisy neighbors. You can shop for an apartment anddownload coupons. We have a blog where people can keep up on issuesthat affect renters. And there"s Rentertainment, where we andour users post videos , photos, and other entertaining stuff related to renting.It"s a for-profit site, but we also plan to use a portion ofthe revenues to organize for changes in housing policy. RELATED: The 5 Worst Rental Scams to Watch Out For TFT: You have a kind of manifesto on your site called"I"m proud to rent." What are you getting atthere? BD: I think it"s ingrained in our culture that renters aresecond-class citizens. And that"s reflected in our nationalpolicies, especially the mortgage interest tax deduction. TheNational Multi-Housing Council notes that of the federal housingsubsidies in 2009, 79 percent went to homeowners and 21 percent torenters. So I think we"re beingshortchanged—we"re about 38 percent now of thepopulation but getting only 21 percent of the resources. I thinkrenters have been silent too long, and it"s time we spoke up. TFT: What"s wrong with promoting homeownership? BD: We"ve got nothing against homeownership. It"s finefor some people. Just don't ask me as a renter to subsidize it. Ithink a home should just be viewed as a place to live, and if ithappens to appreciate in value, good for you. I"m a total advocate for renters and multifamily housing.With more multifamily housing and denser development, there"sless of a footprint on the environment. You don"t have tracthouses encroaching on farms and fields and wildlife habitat. Itmeans fewer roads and less need for capital expenditure for sewerlines and other infrastructure—and less reliance on importedoil. TFT: But those who support homeownership cite studies indicatingthat neighborhoods with more homeowners have less crime and bettercitizen involvement, for example. BD: I"d point you to research last year by Grace Bucchianeriof the Wharton School of Business called The American Dream or The AmericanDelusion—she notes that if you look at studies that havecontrolled for income, housing quality, and other factors,homeowners are no happier than renters, and she doesn"t seeevidence that homeowners are better citizens. Just look at New YorkCity, where something like 70 percent of the population arerenters. You want to tell me New York doesn"t have citizenparticipation? They sure do. And as for crime, I don"t thinkthat"s true, especially now. Here in Arizona, you havesubdivisions where half the homes on the block are in foreclosureand there"s all sorts of stuff going on in those houses.That"s not a place I want to live. TFT: The National Association of Realtors just had 10,000 of theirmembers come to Washington to promote homeownership. Other than fiscal watchdoggroups, there doesn"t seem to be a lot of vocal support foryour side of the housing debate. What"s your politicalstrategy? BD: Having been a politician, I know that leaders respond to aconstituency that votes. That"s why we"ve affiliatedwith MTV"s Rock the Vote, so [renters] can register. We wantto make renters aware that if they want something in theircommunity that is beneficial to renters, they have to vote. We also want to mobilize by working with what we estimate are30,000-plus local, state, and regional tenants associations.We"d love to join with them to organize a million-rentermarch, for example. We would like to be sitting at the housingpolicy discussion tables in Washington and our state capitals. TFT: What else needs changing? BD: There are thirteen cities here in Arizona alone that haverenter"s taxes, which to me is a discriminatory tax. Thereare communities in this country like Madison, Mississippi and WestSt. Paul, Minnesota that put caps on the number of renters who canlive there. I view this almost as a civil rights issue. Yousubstitute black or Hispanic for renter and it"s just purelydiscriminatory. These are the kind of things that we're going to beworking on. We want to change the culture—not only how society viewsrenting, but how renters feel about themselves. There"snothing wrong with renting—it"s a good thing. It givesyou flexibility, which is especially important when unemployment ishigh like right now. I know homeowners who got job offers in othercities but can"t move because they"re stuck inunderwater mortgages. TFT: One of the problems with being a renter is the lack ofcontrol—you can"t paint without permission, youcan"t change the kitchen, and you could lose your homewhenever the landlord sells. Could there be a new model of renting? BD: It"s a good point. Landlords could make accommodations,say, longer-term leases—so that instead of signing a one-yearlease, maybe you go with a five-year lease and then you as therenter have some latitude in terms of design. But local laws wouldhave to be changed to allow that model. SEE ALSO: The hottest NYC neighborhoods to invest in right now This story was originally published by The Fiscal Times . The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as Turgo Hydro Turbine Manufacturer , Flanged Gate Valve, and more. For more , please visit Francis Hydro Turbine today!
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