As the White House credits immigration enforcement for a drop in rental prices across the country, experts and housing data indicate that the decline is not quite so simple, and likely the result of several factors that are more impactful. The White House sent a news release last week touting “ President Trump Drives Down Rents by Ending Open Borders Disaster.” “Rents in major metro areas have dropped significantly from their Biden-era peaks,” the release reads. “In many cities, these declines mean hundreds of dollars back into family budgets every month — relief that was impossible under policies that flooded communities with millions of new arrivals.” The White House pointed to rents down in San Diego by 5.7%, with a decline in international migration by 74.7%. But housing advocates say that drop pre-dates the mass deportation effort, and can be attributed in large part to more housing being built. Related stories Housing 2 hours ago San Diego launches $8.5M fund to preserve affordable housing Kearny Mesa Mar 19 New apartments open in Convoy, marking first homes ever built on Convoy Street Housing Jan 16 Federal funding cuts force San Diego to halt Section 8 housing waitlist Housing Oct 17, 2024 San Diego County housing prices remain steady, single-family home sales drop “Housing is largely a game of musical chairs in that if there’s not enough chairs, if there’s not enough housing, there’s more people chasing for that same spot,” said Saad Asad, of pro-housing group California YIMBY, which stands for “yes in my backyard.” “We have not built enough housing in the past few decades,” Asad continued. “And so you have essentially more and more people competing for that same chair, that same home.” But Asad said in recent years, San Diego has seen more and more construction. “It’s still very expensive, but ultimately it’s that new housing that’s going up that is decreasing demand and means that renters have more leverage and landlords have less leverage to jack up rents,” he said. In a report released Monday, online rental platform Zumper.com found the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment nationwide increased this past month, the first time after six straight months of declines. In San Diego, that’s an average of $2,220 per month, up 0.9% from last month, but still down 3.5% from last year. “It’s been a big boom, because the city relaxed some of the rules around where housing was and wasn’t allowed,” Asad said. “Rental prices move for many reasons, and it’s difficult to attribute changes to any single factor,” Molly Kirkland, of the Southern California Rental Housing Association, said in a statement. “In San Diego, rents are influenced by housing supply, vacancy rates, demand, employment, interest rates, and the cost of expenses such as insurance and maintenance. Over the past two years, we’ve seen a significant increase in new multifamily housing coming onto the market with apartment buildings being built. This increase in housing supply contributed to lower rents.” When asked about the claims made on immigration enforcement and rental prices, the White House did not respond to request for comment. “Housing demand for rents has actually been flatlining for the past three years,” said Caleb Silver, chief business editor of People Inc. He said rental prices soared coming out of the pandemic, particularly across the Southwest, but construction increased and the demand eventually leveled off. “Interest rates have been so high and the median home prices have been relatively high, and no one has really been buying or selling or moving,” Silver said. “So that’s going to bring rental prices down, especially in these cities where rental prices surged over the last few years.” Asad also pointed to the pandemic-era bump as evidence that the correlation between immigration and housing prices is more tenuous than the White House says. “These people only make up a small share of the overall large population,” he said. “One of the biggest price spikes that we saw was during the pandemic, when immigration was actually at an all-time low, and we saw something like 30% price hikes over one year. So clearly it had nothing to do with immigration. It was just this demand spike and insufficient supply.” The White House noted Austin, Texas, as a prime example of falling rents, down 21.5%. But experts said that was, again, because of more housing. “The primary reason for that is Austin has had one of the biggest booms in housing across the entire country,” Asad said, noting Texas’ capital city has built 120,000 new homes over a decade. “So when we’re thinking about the things actually matter, we should be focused on building more housing rather than determining who gets to live in that housing.” As to whether or not it’s fair for the White House to attribute the decline in rental prices to immigration enforcement, Silver said no. “But that’s not going to stop them from saying that,” he said. “That’s a creative way of using math to try to tell a narrative.” ...read more read less