Seriously?Why will rent control kill new apartment construction? Rent control prevents yearly unreasonable increases.
You can't see how price controls can lead to a reduction in the supply of a good? Never mind the staggering evidence in terms of rent control,
Rent control is not the way to increase the amount of affordable housing, nor is it a solution to poverty, inequality, or segregation. Instead, it acts to restrict the supply of housing, transferring wealth to current tenants at the expense of future and market-rate tenants. Insiders—those living in rent-protected units—generally win at the expense of outsiders. In an effort to resist gentrification, rent control leads to the decay of the buildings, as owners have less revenue to spend on maintenance and improvements.
Regulating rents, in short, does more harm than good overall.
Rent Control Makes It Harder to Find an Apartment
- Cities that implement rent control see substantial declines in the availability of rental housing.
- Locking people in to existing rental units leaves many renters in apartments much larger or much smaller than they would prefer.
- In some cities, waitlists for rent-controlled housing are decades-long.
- Rent control benefits incumbent tenants at the expense of migrants hoping to relocate to a city. In New York City, white tenants have disproportionately benefited relative to black or Hispanic tenants, and landlords give preference to older and childless households.
- Many of rent control’s benefits typically flow to higher-income households even as rent control drives up rents for everyone else.
- Rent control reduces investment in a property’s quality and causes a city’s housing stock to decay.
- By suppressing property values, rent control also reduces tax revenue to municipalities, hindering their ability to provide essential services.
Government often does things that sound like a good idea with the best of intentions but it backfires in often predictable ways if you just look into the knock on effects a bit more.
In the case of rent control people are still pushing for it when they should know better.
The weaker the rent control, the weaker the effect and the less the benefit, the stronger the rent control, the more destructive it will be. Do it hard enough and you get New York in the 70s where it was cheaper to abandon or burn down a building than continue to pay the taxes and maintenance.
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