5 ms·

> every economist agrees doesn’t work? Yes, but "doesn't work" is a bit of a loaded term. Economists agree that rent control is not the most profitable way to

> every economist agrees doesn’t work? Yes, but "doesn't work" is a bit of a loaded term. Economists agree that rent control is not the most profitable way to price housing, but since the whole point of rent control is to prevent aggressive profit-seeking in housing, economists "agreeing it doesn't work" is intentionally the goal. Rent controls job is not to make more housing (it has no control over that). Rent control's job is not to make housing cheaper (it has no control over that). Rent controls only job is to provide housing security for existing renters, and the vast majority of the time, it's successful at doing that. If you also want cheaper housing overall, your supposed to pair rent control with a matching set of changes for non-rent-protected residents (like say, pair it with new construction of additional public-owned public-operated housing).

jdasdf 5y ago
>Rent controls only job is to provide housing security for existing renters, and the vast majority of the time, it's successful at doing that.´ At a cost to everyone else.
- maxsilver 5y ago
  > At a cost to everyone else. It doesn't. There is no cost to anyone else, unless you believe all purchases of all products automatically hurt someone else (since every purchase you make technically reduces overall supply by the amount you purchased)
  - antasvara 5y ago
    The use of rent control isn't the issue. If a policy is in place, actually using the options it affords isn't the issue. It's the policy itself that causes the cost to others. I don't think it's crazy to say that rent control helps those in it and hurts those that aren't in it. That's not the tenant's fault, but we can't pretend that rent control doesn't have an effect on the supply of rentable apartments.
    - maxsilver 5y ago
      > I don't think it's crazy to say that rent control helps those in it and hurts those that aren't in it. Hard disagree, it's crazy to claim that rent control hurts affordability. Rent control does not "hurt" anyone not in it. The lack of humane regulation on housing is hurting those people, and rent control is just getting slandered in the cross fire. What most people interpret as "rent control causing" is in reality "the lack of enough rent control causing". It's like looking at a car crash, and saying "see, seat belts didn't protect the non-wearers, those seat belts just selfishly protected only their own wearer, and even created more empty space for the non-belted to get extra physical damage. Seat belts hurt all those not belted, the policy itself of offering seatbelts 'causes' damage to others."
      - antasvara 5y ago
        That's an unfair analogy. Rent control directly (or undirectly, depending on your views) decreases the supply of rentable units. Your seatbelt analogy implies that anybody, at any time, can obtain rent control. That's simply not the case. I can't "get" a rent-controlled apartment as easily as I can put on a seatbelt, because the "seatbelt" of rent control isn't available to everyone in the city. A better analogy would be a city bus. If I take 10% of the seats and allow people to reserve them for personal use indefinitely, that makes the rest of the bus more crowded. The act of renting those seats out limits the supply of other seats, making the rest of the bus more crowded. It doesn't "cause" damage to the riders in the 90% of the bus, but pretending this policy hasn't made things more crowded would make no sense.
        maxsilver 5y ago
        > Rent control directly (or undirectly, depending on your views) decreases the supply of rentable units But it doesn't. Rent control never takes away any supply. Even if rent control were fully abolished, that same person would still need the same amount of housing (presumably even in the same unit). From a "supply" perspective, it's literally a 1 to 1 -- no change in unit counts, up or down, in any way. Rent control has no influence over "supply" (unless you are secretly hoping to force a lot of humans into homelessness or something). Rent control only determines how much a person is forced to pay to keep their own housing (housing already built, and that they already occupy) consistent. > Your seatbelt analogy implies that anybody, at any time, can obtain rent control. Correct, and that's absolutely true. Generally speaking, legislators could pass a law today to give everybody and anybody rent control (at either the municipal / county / state or federal level). It's literally just a pen stroke away. There was a time when seatbelts weren't law, and it was harder to obtain them. We recognized how unequal of a situation that would make things, and thus mandated through regulations via law that all cars have them. (Just as right now, it's really unequal for some people to have rent control, but others don't). Generally, every argument against Rent Control, is really an argument about how it sucks that they don't get rent control themselves. The problem is not rent control, the problem is a lack of enough rent control. If rent control was universal (applied to 100% of rental units) then most of the perceived problems with it would vanish overnight. > If I take 10% of the seats and allow people to reserve them for personal use indefinitely That's not an better analogy, it's a unfair one. Rent control does not give people the ability to reserve lots of housing units indefinitely, and rent control doesn't actually distribute or redistribute anything. It lets households pay for one (1) unit at real-world rates (which is exactly the same amount of housing they'd still need and use without any rent control, except that household would suddenly have to give a bunch of extra money away for literally no reason).
flavius29663 5y ago
> Rent control's job is not to make housing cheaper (it has no control over that). But that is the problem: it makes housing so much more expensive. It definitely has a control over that.
davrosthedalek 5y ago
The problem is that is HAS control over making more housing. And, indirectly, it HAS control over making housing cheaper. Because what it does it suppresses the supply of housing, it makes it more expensive for anyone not living in a rent-controlled apartment. Also, sooner or later, the quality of the apartment will match the rent.
perpetualpatzer 5y ago
>Economists agree that rent control is not the most profitable way to price housing I don't think that that's what economists are talking about when they say rent controls "don't work". I think the consensus is more specifically that it is not an effective way to increase the total supply of affordable housing. For example, see this survey [0] of notable economists where 2% agreed that: >Local ordinances that limit rent increases for some rental housing units, such as in New York and San Francisco, have had a positive impact over the past three decades on the amount and quality of broadly affordable rental housing in cities that have used them. Reading through the economists' comments, the consensus seems to be: 1) helps incumbent renters by reducing pricing for them, 2) reduces total supply, 3) hurts non-rent-protected residents (mediated by 2). Possibly the answer is still "doesn't matter, achieved 1)", but I don't think it's fair to characterize it as a magical policy lever that only hurts profiteering landlords. [0] https://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/rent-control/ https://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/rent-control/
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  1) is the entire goal of rent control. Everything else is just excuses that the people that want (1) have made up. I'm not even sure they're wrong either. Kicking people out of their homes might maximize surplus, but it has huge negative effects on the utility of those that are forced to leave and those that are worried that they will, be forced to leave.

jdasdf 5y ago

>Rent controls only job is to provide housing security for existing renters, and the vast majority of the time, it's successful at doing that.´ At a cost to everyone else.

maxsilver 5y ago
> At a cost to everyone else. It doesn't. There is no cost to anyone else, unless you believe all purchases of all products automatically hurt someone else (since every purchase you make technically reduces overall supply by the amount you purchased)
- antasvara 5y ago
  The use of rent control isn't the issue. If a policy is in place, actually using the options it affords isn't the issue. It's the policy itself that causes the cost to others. I don't think it's crazy to say that rent control helps those in it and hurts those that aren't in it. That's not the tenant's fault, but we can't pretend that rent control doesn't have an effect on the supply of rentable apartments.
  - maxsilver 5y ago
    > I don't think it's crazy to say that rent control helps those in it and hurts those that aren't in it. Hard disagree, it's crazy to claim that rent control hurts affordability. Rent control does not "hurt" anyone not in it. The lack of humane regulation on housing is hurting those people, and rent control is just getting slandered in the cross fire. What most people interpret as "rent control causing" is in reality "the lack of enough rent control causing". It's like looking at a car crash, and saying "see, seat belts didn't protect the non-wearers, those seat belts just selfishly protected only their own wearer, and even created more empty space for the non-belted to get extra physical damage. Seat belts hurt all those not belted, the policy itself of offering seatbelts 'causes' damage to others."
    - antasvara 5y ago
      That's an unfair analogy. Rent control directly (or undirectly, depending on your views) decreases the supply of rentable units. Your seatbelt analogy implies that anybody, at any time, can obtain rent control. That's simply not the case. I can't "get" a rent-controlled apartment as easily as I can put on a seatbelt, because the "seatbelt" of rent control isn't available to everyone in the city. A better analogy would be a city bus. If I take 10% of the seats and allow people to reserve them for personal use indefinitely, that makes the rest of the bus more crowded. The act of renting those seats out limits the supply of other seats, making the rest of the bus more crowded. It doesn't "cause" damage to the riders in the 90% of the bus, but pretending this policy hasn't made things more crowded would make no sense.
      - maxsilver 5y ago
        > Rent control directly (or undirectly, depending on your views) decreases the supply of rentable units But it doesn't. Rent control never takes away any supply. Even if rent control were fully abolished, that same person would still need the same amount of housing (presumably even in the same unit). From a "supply" perspective, it's literally a 1 to 1 -- no change in unit counts, up or down, in any way. Rent control has no influence over "supply" (unless you are secretly hoping to force a lot of humans into homelessness or something). Rent control only determines how much a person is forced to pay to keep their own housing (housing already built, and that they already occupy) consistent. > Your seatbelt analogy implies that anybody, at any time, can obtain rent control. Correct, and that's absolutely true. Generally speaking, legislators could pass a law today to give everybody and anybody rent control (at either the municipal / county / state or federal level). It's literally just a pen stroke away. There was a time when seatbelts weren't law, and it was harder to obtain them. We recognized how unequal of a situation that would make things, and thus mandated through regulations via law that all cars have them. (Just as right now, it's really unequal for some people to have rent control, but others don't). Generally, every argument against Rent Control, is really an argument about how it sucks that they don't get rent control themselves. The problem is not rent control, the problem is a lack of enough rent control. If rent control was universal (applied to 100% of rental units) then most of the perceived problems with it would vanish overnight. > If I take 10% of the seats and allow people to reserve them for personal use indefinitely That's not an better analogy, it's a unfair one. Rent control does not give people the ability to reserve lots of housing units indefinitely, and rent control doesn't actually distribute or redistribute anything. It lets households pay for one (1) unit at real-world rates (which is exactly the same amount of housing they'd still need and use without any rent control, except that household would suddenly have to give a bunch of extra money away for literally no reason).

flavius29663 5y ago

> Rent control's job is not to make housing cheaper (it has no control over that). But that is the problem: it makes housing so much more expensive. It definitely has a control over that.

davrosthedalek 5y ago

The problem is that is HAS control over making more housing. And, indirectly, it HAS control over making housing cheaper. Because what it does it suppresses the supply of housing, it makes it more expensive for anyone not living in a rent-controlled apartment. Also, sooner or later, the quality of the apartment will match the rent.

perpetualpatzer 5y ago

>Economists agree that rent control is not the most profitable way to price housing I don't think that that's what economists are talking about when they say rent controls "don't work". I think the consensus is more specifically that it is not an effective way to increase the total supply of affordable housing. For example, see this survey [0] of notable economists where 2% agreed that: >Local ordinances that limit rent increases for some rental housing units, such as in New York and San Francisco, have had a positive impact over the past three decades on the amount and quality of broadly affordable rental housing in cities that have used them. Reading through the economists' comments, the consensus seems to be: 1) helps incumbent renters by reducing pricing for them, 2) reduces total supply, 3) hurts non-rent-protected residents (mediated by 2). Possibly the answer is still "doesn't matter, achieved 1)", but I don't think it's fair to characterize it as a magical policy lever that only hurts profiteering landlords. [0] https://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/rent-control/ https://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/rent-control/

colinmhayes 5y ago
1) is the entire goal of rent control. Everything else is just excuses that the people that want (1) have made up. I'm not even sure they're wrong either. Kicking people out of their homes might maximize surplus, but it has huge negative effects on the utility of those that are forced to leave and those that are worried that they will, be forced to leave.