How COVID-19 regulations triggered a wave of anti-landlord policies that reshaped rental housing economics

A Real Estate President’s Irony

One of the greatest ironies of Donald Trump’s presidency is that a real-estate developer and landlord oversaw the nation’s first federal eviction moratorium. In 2020, as COVID lockdowns gripped the country, Trump signed the CARES Act, initiating a sweeping eviction ban on properties with federal loans or subsidies. Despite billions in aid, tenant advocacy groups denounced the administration, warning of an impending “eviction tsunami.”

While landlords challenged the legality of extended moratoriums, state and local governments imposed their own broad tenant protections. These included eviction bans and laws that dramatically restructured the landlord-tenant relationship—many of which remained in place long after the pandemic waned.

The Long Tail of Emergency Policies

What began as short-term relief ballooned into long-term regulation. Small landlords, nonprofit housing providers, and even larger rental operators were hit hard by mounting nonpayment. Laws tilted the legal scales toward tenants, encouraging some to withhold rent and use bureaucratic protections to delay or avoid eviction entirely. Rather than increasing affordability, these laws disincentivized property investment, limited housing supply, and ultimately contributed to rising rents.

Even in progressive cities, officials began sounding alarms. Washington, D.C.’s Mayor Muriel Bowser admitted, “What we want is for people to pay their rent,” as mounting delinquencies threatened affordable housing infrastructure.

A Devastating Blow to Landlords

Residential landlords were disproportionately impacted by pandemic policy. The CARES Act’s national eviction ban was followed by CDC-imposed bans that lasted until August 2021, when the Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional without congressional approval.

States piled on: 43 states and hundreds of cities enacted eviction freezes. New York, Minnesota, and parts of California extended them into 2022 and 2023. For landlords—especially mom-and-pop owners—the impact was devastating. Many operated on thin margins and couldn’t distinguish between tenants who genuinely struggled and those who exploited the rules. Census data from 2021 showed 6.5 million households behind on rent—many in small properties owned by modest-income landlords.

By August 2021, Goldman Sachs estimated landlords were owed $17 billion in unpaid rent. A National Apartment Association lawsuit claimed losses near $27 billion. Nonprofit operators like the New York City Housing Authority saw rent collection drop from 95% pre-pandemic to 60% by 2023.

Inadequate Relief and Widespread Abuse

Federal rental assistance—totaling $46 billion—was slow to deploy. By summer 2021, less than $5 billion had reached landlords. Many states required joint applications from tenants and landlords, but many tenants refused to cooperate, knowing they couldn’t be evicted. One Las Vegas landlord reported being owed $10,000 by a tenant who kept his six-figure job throughout the pandemic. “I feel the state has failed me,” he said.

In New York, even after the eviction ban was lifted, landlords couldn’t act against tenants who had applied for aid—even when the program was out of money.

Investment Withers, Rents Rise

Revenue losses spurred disinvestment. Landlords delayed maintenance, sold properties, or exited the market. In California, real-estate broker Ken Calhoun noted a sharp decline in available single-family rentals as owners sold off properties. “Lawmakers have declared war on housing providers,” he warned.

Paradoxically, evictions remained below normal for most of the pandemic. After the CARES Act, evictions dropped to 8% of pre-COVID levels. Even after the Supreme Court overturned the national ban, state laws kept evictions below 60% of typical volumes until late 2021. By 2023, eviction filings briefly spiked, then returned to normal.

A Flood of New Tenant Laws

But tenant advocates had already succeeded in reshaping the legal landscape. In just three years, 217 new tenant laws were passed across 16 categories, nearly doubling the national regulatory framework. These included rent caps, nonrenewal restrictions, mandatory Section 8 participation, and limits on fees and deposits.

While some reforms—like free legal counsel—sound fair, they carry hidden costs. They hinder rent increases, delay evictions, and reduce landlord discretion. These changes have reshaped how—and whether—landlords choose to operate.

Steven Malanga is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and City Journal’s senior editor. He writes about the intersection of urban economies, business communities, and public policy. Malanga is the author of The New New Left: How American Politics Works Today (2005); The Immigration Solution: A Better Plan than Today’s (2007), coauthored with Heather Mac Donald and Victor Davis Hanson; and Shakedown: The Continuing Conspiracy Against the American Taxpayer (2010). In 2013, former Florida governor Jeb Bush called Malanga “the best thinker on state and local fiscal matters” in a tweet; in a 2014 Manhattan Institute speech, he said that Malanga’s warnings on states’ coming debt and pension crises had influenced fiscal reforms undertaken in Florida.