Jeff Bezos said the reason for high housing costs is a basic supply and demand problem, and not greedy landlords.
He argued in interviews with several media outlets that government programs have made it worse by subsidizing demand while limiting how much new housing gets built.
Housing costs also push young people far from their jobs just to afford a house.
Where he parts ways with many politicians is on who is to blame. Bezos said the popular line that “greedy landlords” are behind high housing costs misses what is actually going on, and that pointing at them gets in the way of working on the real fix.
“[Housing] is a place where a lot of the government intervention that has happened has been counterproductive,” he told Fox News. “Instead of work on the real solution, it’s very common for, in the case of housing, for certain politicians to point at landlords and say this is the fault of greedy landlords. Housing is a simple supply and demand situation. It’s Econ 101.”
Bezos added that government programs that boost demand while limiting supply can lead to higher housing prices. “If you put in place government programs that subsidize demand and constrain supply, you are going to get high prices. That’s what many municipalities do.”
He had advice for voters, too. Bezos said a politician who spends time “picking villains and pointing fingers” probably does not have a real solution, and that people should look closely at anyone who leads with blame.
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