Read a great article at Forbes on Rent Control. Hat tip to WI Landlord Tenant Law Attorney Tristan Pettit for sharing the article with us.
“Because the downsides of rent control are all born by other people in the future, while the upsides of rent control, be they either real or imagined, are conferred on renters today. Politicians would gladly accept that someone else pays you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
The article is good, but better is his full analysis. You can read it at:
http://www.seattleforgrowth.org/rent-control-politics-less-housing/
or download it at:
http://www.seattleforgrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Rent-Control-Analysis-Ver1-Complete.pdf
Additionally, the benefit of having rent lower than market rent may or may not help people that supporters intended to help. In a study of New York rent control in the 1960s, found that the “benefits were higher for older tenants, richer tenants, and white tenants than for their counterparts,” and “the cost to landlords exceeded the benefits to tenants by about 75 percent.
Even when apartments are price controlled, if they aren’t abundant, and one can’t pay more for them, then people must wait in line for them. Bread lines in the Soviet Union were symbolic of the fact that bread was cheap, but there wasn’t any bread to be had. Because of this, people with plenty of money to spend end up in rent-controlled apartments they won’t leave.”
