3 ms·

As a person living in New York who thinks rent stabilization has been largely more successful than not at achieving its goals, I disagree.

by CPLX 7y ago

partiallypro 7y ago
The data disagrees with you, it has caused shortages. Especially pre-90s. Since I was downvoted for stating things that are factually observed: https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/DMQ.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/DMQ.pdf https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-01-18/yup-rent-control-does-more-harm-than-good https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-01-18/yup-re... https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-rent-affair.html https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-rent... https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2015/08/30/do-rent-controls-work https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2015/08/30/... http://iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/Verdict%20On%20Rent%20Control.pdf http://iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/Ver...
- CPLX 7y ago
  The goal of rent stabilization is to make neighborhoods more stable. The concept is right there in the name, and that's exactly what it does. It's not built to stop shortages, or to increase the availability of apartments for people moving to the city.
  - chimeracoder 7y ago
    > The goal of rent stabilization is to make neighborhoods more stable. The concept is right there in the name, and that's exactly what it does. No, it's not. Rent stabilization is, purportedly, about ensuring that poor or low-income residents specifically aren't pushed out of neighborhoods or New York City entirely due to gentrification and rising rents. In terms of making housing affordable for those people, rent stabilization is incredibly ineffective.
    - CPLX 7y ago
      That's really not actually why these laws have been created. Their intent has always been to protect existing residents. Not poor or low income, necessarily, in fact for the most part the original idea was to protect the middle class, not so much the poor. Which should be unsurprising if you have any basic concept of who wields political power in cities. The key distinction is between people who are already there and people who aren't. Your assumption is a very common one but it's a misconception, and the difference is pretty crucial. It's not that hard to figure out: having massive rent increases possible upon vacancy, as well as almost no means testing (only in one special case) are two of the several obvious tells.
      - chimeracoder 7y ago
        > That's really not actually why these laws have been created. Their intent has always been to protect existing residents. I'm well aware of the history of rent regulation in New York City, and this is flat-out incorrect. > Not poor or low income, necessarily, in fact for the most part the original idea was to protect the middle class, not so much the poor. Which should be unsurprising if you have any basic concept of who wields political power in cities. Rent stabilization, in its current form, is a handout to the upper-middle class, couched in rhetoric about helping the "poor" and "working class". > It's not that hard to figure out: having massive rent increases possible upon vacancy, as well as almost no means testing (only in one special case) are two of the several obvious tells. This is... not how the rent stabilization law in New York City works.
  - baron816 7y ago
    The problem with these types of price controls is that it’s inherently unfair. If you’re on the inside and lucky enough to get a rent controlled apartment, you win. Everyone else loses.
    - CPLX 7y ago
      That's correct. Or said another way, if you have strong ties to the city and/or are a longtime resident of the neighborhood you win, if you don't you lose.
      - chimeracoder 7y ago
        > Or said another way, if you have strong ties to the city and/or are a longtime resident of the neighborhood you win, if you don't you lose. This has literally nothing to do with who ends up in a rent stabilized apartment. In fact, new residents are more likely to end up in rent stabilized apartments than existing residents, so rent stabilization has the exact opposite effect of what you're describing it does.
        CPLX 7y ago
        > new residents are more likely to end up in rent stabilized apartments than existing residents Citation needed on that one.
      - baron816 7y ago
        So cities should be walled off gardens that don’t let new people fair access the opportunities to be had within?
    - bko 7y ago
      I would also note that it promotes illegal behavior as people who are lucky enough will often illegally sublet the home at the market price.
      - CPLX 7y ago
        All laws that prevent people from doing something they want to do promote illegal behavior by this definition.
bobthepanda 7y ago
People who disagree with rent control largely disagree with the goals, which is to keep existing residents where they are. It’s effective at that until landlords abuse the loopholes, which you have to keep closing through legislative whack-a-mole.
- partiallypro 7y ago
  > People who disagree with rent control largely disagree with the goals This is absolutely false. They just understand, by economics, and history, that it has failed. The best way to decrease rents is to make housing more affordable through supply. Unfortunately it sometimes takes time for supply to catch-up and you get price surges...but you also have special interests, especially in the US (aka real estate firms) that lobby zoning boards to limit development and drive up prices for their own benefit. This is not even a partisan issue, economists on both ends of the spectrum are in near complete agreement that rent controls are damaging.
  - CPLX 7y ago
    > rent controls are damaging To whom? Rent controls redistribute the value capture from gentrifying neighborhoods away from landlords and towards longtime residents. That's what they're intended to do, and they do that.
    - Rebelgecko 7y ago
      Anecdotally, I know multiple people that have turned down better paying (and arguably better for society) jobs because they would have to move but don't want to give up on their current rent-controlled apartment. What seems to always end up happening is that new residents subsidize the rent controlled ones, which creates this weird lock-in dynamic because people can't afford to move into equivalent housing literally next door. Rent control also gives landlords an incentive to encourage older residents to move. Sometimes they do this with big payouts to people that are willing to leave (I know someone that got offered $10k to leave his current place, but I've heard of payments as high as $50k). Less scrupulous landlords try to accomplish the same thing by letting the living conditions deteriorate to the bare minimum level that code enforcement will tolerate (or lower than the bare minimum, because they know that certain groups of people such as undocumented immigrants are reluctant to contact the authorities).
NikolaeVarius 7y ago
It's achieved its goals of letting/forcing people to stay in their apts. It has utterly failed in actually dealing with housing
urda 7y ago
Except it doesn't work, and has been proven to not actually work.
- CPLX 7y ago
  I read some version of this sentence every time the topic comes up. Like it's just "proven" not to work, as if there's some kind of objective science that exists independently of values and assumptions. Rent stabilization is intended to keep permanent residents of the apartments in question from being forced to move by rent increases. It does exactly that thing.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- urda 7y ago
  HN readers downvotes don't disregard facts and you should retract your downvotes immediately. Reminder: the downvote button isn't there because you disagree with facts and you need to leave your emotions at the door. There's multiple sources linked in this thread proving this. https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/DMQ.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/DMQ.pdf https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2015/08/30/do-rent-controls-work https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2015/08/30/... and plenty more throughout.
tathougies 7y ago
Of course residents love rent stabilization. They like it for the same reason the rich enjoy greater returns on wealth. Rent control makes housing disproportionately cheap for those currently living in the city and disproportionately expensive or unavailable for those seeking to move in or youth seeking to move to their own place. In effect, it's a tax on the young and the migrant to subsidize the older, richer, and more entrenched.
- CPLX 7y ago
  > In effect, it's a tax on the young and the migrant to subsidize the older, richer, and more entrenched. That's not correct. It's a redistribution from landlords to tenants. It's at least possible that there are also dynamic effects on the larger market, of course, but it's intentionally misleading to act like the "tax" is on people that aren't a party to the transaction. The cost/money that would have been captured by the landlord is instead captured by the tenant. The core of the mechanic is pretty straightforward.
  - tathougies 7y ago
    Hmm... I count not being able to afford a unit in the city you want to live in, and thus either having to commute (inconvenient) or find work in another city (opportunity cost), to be a kind of tax. Taxation is not just monetary. The landlords are taxed; you're not wrong. But they're not the ones most hurt by these policies.

As a person living in New York who thinks rent stabilization has been largely more successful than not at achieving its goals, I disagree.

by CPLX 7y ago

As a person living in New York who thinks rent stabilization has been largely more successful than not at achieving its goals, I disagree.

partiallypro 7y ago

The data disagrees with you, it has caused shortages. Especially pre-90s. Since I was downvoted for stating things that are factually observed: https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/DMQ.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/DMQ.pdf https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-01-18/yup-rent-control-does-more-harm-than-good https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-01-18/yup-re... https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-rent-affair.html https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-rent... https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2015/08/30/do-rent-controls-work https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2015/08/30/... http://iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/Verdict%20On%20Rent%20Control.pdf http://iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/Ver...

CPLX 7y ago
The goal of rent stabilization is to make neighborhoods more stable. The concept is right there in the name, and that's exactly what it does. It's not built to stop shortages, or to increase the availability of apartments for people moving to the city.
- chimeracoder 7y ago
  > The goal of rent stabilization is to make neighborhoods more stable. The concept is right there in the name, and that's exactly what it does. No, it's not. Rent stabilization is, purportedly, about ensuring that poor or low-income residents specifically aren't pushed out of neighborhoods or New York City entirely due to gentrification and rising rents. In terms of making housing affordable for those people, rent stabilization is incredibly ineffective.
  - CPLX 7y ago
    That's really not actually why these laws have been created. Their intent has always been to protect existing residents. Not poor or low income, necessarily, in fact for the most part the original idea was to protect the middle class, not so much the poor. Which should be unsurprising if you have any basic concept of who wields political power in cities. The key distinction is between people who are already there and people who aren't. Your assumption is a very common one but it's a misconception, and the difference is pretty crucial. It's not that hard to figure out: having massive rent increases possible upon vacancy, as well as almost no means testing (only in one special case) are two of the several obvious tells.
    - chimeracoder 7y ago
      > That's really not actually why these laws have been created. Their intent has always been to protect existing residents. I'm well aware of the history of rent regulation in New York City, and this is flat-out incorrect. > Not poor or low income, necessarily, in fact for the most part the original idea was to protect the middle class, not so much the poor. Which should be unsurprising if you have any basic concept of who wields political power in cities. Rent stabilization, in its current form, is a handout to the upper-middle class, couched in rhetoric about helping the "poor" and "working class". > It's not that hard to figure out: having massive rent increases possible upon vacancy, as well as almost no means testing (only in one special case) are two of the several obvious tells. This is... not how the rent stabilization law in New York City works.
- baron816 7y ago
  The problem with these types of price controls is that it’s inherently unfair. If you’re on the inside and lucky enough to get a rent controlled apartment, you win. Everyone else loses.
  - CPLX 7y ago
    That's correct. Or said another way, if you have strong ties to the city and/or are a longtime resident of the neighborhood you win, if you don't you lose.
    - chimeracoder 7y ago
      > Or said another way, if you have strong ties to the city and/or are a longtime resident of the neighborhood you win, if you don't you lose. This has literally nothing to do with who ends up in a rent stabilized apartment. In fact, new residents are more likely to end up in rent stabilized apartments than existing residents, so rent stabilization has the exact opposite effect of what you're describing it does.
      - CPLX 7y ago
        > new residents are more likely to end up in rent stabilized apartments than existing residents Citation needed on that one.
    - baron816 7y ago
      So cities should be walled off gardens that don’t let new people fair access the opportunities to be had within?
  - bko 7y ago
    I would also note that it promotes illegal behavior as people who are lucky enough will often illegally sublet the home at the market price.
    - CPLX 7y ago
      All laws that prevent people from doing something they want to do promote illegal behavior by this definition.

bobthepanda 7y ago

People who disagree with rent control largely disagree with the goals, which is to keep existing residents where they are. It’s effective at that until landlords abuse the loopholes, which you have to keep closing through legislative whack-a-mole.

partiallypro 7y ago
> People who disagree with rent control largely disagree with the goals This is absolutely false. They just understand, by economics, and history, that it has failed. The best way to decrease rents is to make housing more affordable through supply. Unfortunately it sometimes takes time for supply to catch-up and you get price surges...but you also have special interests, especially in the US (aka real estate firms) that lobby zoning boards to limit development and drive up prices for their own benefit. This is not even a partisan issue, economists on both ends of the spectrum are in near complete agreement that rent controls are damaging.
- CPLX 7y ago
  > rent controls are damaging To whom? Rent controls redistribute the value capture from gentrifying neighborhoods away from landlords and towards longtime residents. That's what they're intended to do, and they do that.
  - Rebelgecko 7y ago
    Anecdotally, I know multiple people that have turned down better paying (and arguably better for society) jobs because they would have to move but don't want to give up on their current rent-controlled apartment. What seems to always end up happening is that new residents subsidize the rent controlled ones, which creates this weird lock-in dynamic because people can't afford to move into equivalent housing literally next door. Rent control also gives landlords an incentive to encourage older residents to move. Sometimes they do this with big payouts to people that are willing to leave (I know someone that got offered $10k to leave his current place, but I've heard of payments as high as $50k). Less scrupulous landlords try to accomplish the same thing by letting the living conditions deteriorate to the bare minimum level that code enforcement will tolerate (or lower than the bare minimum, because they know that certain groups of people such as undocumented immigrants are reluctant to contact the authorities).

NikolaeVarius 7y ago

It's achieved its goals of letting/forcing people to stay in their apts. It has utterly failed in actually dealing with housing

urda 7y ago

Except it doesn't work, and has been proven to not actually work.

CPLX 7y ago
I read some version of this sentence every time the topic comes up. Like it's just "proven" not to work, as if there's some kind of objective science that exists independently of values and assumptions. Rent stabilization is intended to keep permanent residents of the apartments in question from being forced to move by rent increases. It does exactly that thing.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
urda 7y ago
HN readers downvotes don't disregard facts and you should retract your downvotes immediately. Reminder: the downvote button isn't there because you disagree with facts and you need to leave your emotions at the door. There's multiple sources linked in this thread proving this. https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/DMQ.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/DMQ.pdf https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2015/08/30/do-rent-controls-work https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2015/08/30/... and plenty more throughout.

tathougies 7y ago

Of course residents love rent stabilization. They like it for the same reason the rich enjoy greater returns on wealth. Rent control makes housing disproportionately cheap for those currently living in the city and disproportionately expensive or unavailable for those seeking to move in or youth seeking to move to their own place. In effect, it's a tax on the young and the migrant to subsidize the older, richer, and more entrenched.

CPLX 7y ago
> In effect, it's a tax on the young and the migrant to subsidize the older, richer, and more entrenched. That's not correct. It's a redistribution from landlords to tenants. It's at least possible that there are also dynamic effects on the larger market, of course, but it's intentionally misleading to act like the "tax" is on people that aren't a party to the transaction. The cost/money that would have been captured by the landlord is instead captured by the tenant. The core of the mechanic is pretty straightforward.
- tathougies 7y ago
  Hmm... I count not being able to afford a unit in the city you want to live in, and thus either having to commute (inconvenient) or find work in another city (opportunity cost), to be a kind of tax. Taxation is not just monetary. The landlords are taxed; you're not wrong. But they're not the ones most hurt by these policies.