About one-third of US households rent. Renter households, compared with homeowner households, are disproportionately lower income, are young, do not have college degrees, have dramatically lower wealth and savings, and are more likely to be Black or Hispanic. Homeowners (particularly, mortgage borrowers) have had federal protections for decades. This report offers a pragmatic starting point for how larger investors and landlords in residential real estate (both multifamily and single family) with federally backed lending products could institute basic tenant protections.

We offer several potential protections covering various aspects of renters’ experiences, including those that address evictions, approval qualifications, dispute resolution, fee disclosures, and wealth-building opportunities, such as renters with good performance getting education and credit toward future homeownership. To help implement these protections and benefits, and to inform future iterations of these protections, we also propose establishing a federal database of housing units that receive federal subsidies, with information provided directly by landlords to a federal repository.

Although these protections will help stabilize some renters, they cannot address current market pressures and high rent prices that have increased faster than wages. Alleviating these structural issues in the rental market will have very large impact on renter well-being. For maximum impact, we hope that these renter protections will happen in tandem with other reforms, such as increases in funding for housing choice vouchers, and increases in housing supply.