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> Part of the problem is government regulation. And not just too much regulation, but the wrong kind of regulation, and a lack of regulation in areas that need

• alexb_ 3y ago
  > Someone in the article was forced out of her home because her landlord suddenly raised her rent by $500. That shouldn't be legal. Rent gets raised by $500 because someone else would actually pay that much. Rent control is the ultimate "I got mine" - it rewards people who got in early while making it impossible for anyone else to have housing. The reason rent could go up that much is because supply is so artificially constrained.
  • onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
    > Rent gets raised by $500 because someone else would actually pay that much. In many cases, rent gets raised by $500 for the unit to be vacant so the landlord can claim to have $500 more in revenue per month (and get loans on that). In some parts of the country - you have >50% of units in large population centers owned and/or operated by just a few companies. Like KSA reducing oil supply by 10% to increase prices 5% - sometimes strange things make sense when you have a cartel. In SF, I had many friends have their rent raised by 10% - move out - the unit sit vacant for 6 months, and then the price reduced back to what it was and still be vacant. I wouldn't assume any time landlords are raising prices - it's because they had a bidding war on the unit and someone's paying more.
    • seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      Those are different from the places where the vacancy rates are low, people have trouble finding vacant apartments at any price, and the rent increases are limited. It was a nightmare finding a place to rent in Lausanne. The rents were affordable compared to my salary, but the competition for units was fierce. Since bidding wars weren’t allowed, landlords would use other criteria to select tenants (being a foreigner was a negative).
  • 2devnull 3y ago
    Supply and demand go together. To talk about one and not the other is simply wrong. If demand was constant or only slightly increasing we wouldn’t have a shortage. The shortage is more demand driven than people want to acknowledge and so we can’t even begin to solve the problem since it’s not accurately defined. It’s a demand issue, so the solution has become price increases. There will never be enough houses in Malibu to meet the world’s demand and have those houses also be affordable. If we let millions of new demanders into the market each year, prices have to rise because you can’t fit the worlds population in Malibu.
    • incahoots 3y ago
      > It’s a demand issue, so the solution has become price increases That’s more of a capitalist solution than a real solution. Instead of building additional housing we just move the access from millions via price increases. We can resolve it by creating more supply, we already do by way of copious amounts of cheap plastic home goods that flood the purchasing landscape.
  • ericmay 3y ago
    > The reason rent could go up that much is because supply is so artificially constrained. Or naturally constrained, it doesn't have to be artificially constrained. I am open-minded on rent control. I agree with your sentiment here, but it seems like the trade off for not having rent control then becomes as a society we have to be willing to accept people becoming homeless because of changes in rent prices like this.
  • mcv 3y ago
    Extreme increases in rent are extortion. It's abusing vendor lock-in. Moving costs a lot of time and money, so people will feel forced to pay more for a house than they would have paid if they were looking. The landlord is abusing their position of power. In plenty of countries, you can fight rent increases if you feel they're not justified.
  • incahoots 3y ago
    > Rent control is the ultimate "I got mine" - it rewards people who got in early while making it impossible for anyone else to have housing As opposed to someone willing to sacrifice their health by working multiple jobs to live in a such a place. Rent control works, the problem is we don’t build enough homes to resolve the “not enough” problem. The construction industry is working skeleton crews currently due to the 2008 recession where thousands lost their jobs and never came back. Then you have the issue with exorbitant property values in metro-like cities which prevent nonprofits and local governments from sitting at the bargaining table. Building outside of the city has its own unique issues. Arguing that rent control doesn’t work is pretty disingenuous.
  • giantrobot 3y ago
    > Rent control is the ultimate "I got mine" - it rewards people who got in early while making it impossible for anyone else to have housing. Where the fuck is the priced out person supposed to go? They need to uproot their life because a wealthier person came along?
    • rendang 3y ago
      You don't have some special right to keep living in the same neighborhood just because you were there first
      • giantrobot 3y ago
        You don't have some special right to upend someone else's life because you were somewhere second. You'd be singing quite a different tune if someone decided to kick you out of your house simply because they have more money and decided they wanted your plot.
        • rendang 3y ago
          An apartment you rent is not "your" house. If you get used to eating some species of shellfish, and the market price for it suddenly triples, society is not obliged to subsidize you continuing to eating it for the rest of your life.
  • greenie_beans 3y ago
    > Rent gets raised by $500 because someone else would actually pay that much. doesn't make it right! the free market is inherently unequal.
  • vehemenz 3y ago
    You didn't answer why that should be legal. We all know how free market dynamics work.
• wyager 3y ago
  > her landlord suddenly raised her rent by $500. That shouldn't be legal. GP: "Government regulation is preventing the construction of more housing" You: "So true. For example, we need more regulation that make housing a legally encumbered asset with uniquely constrained and inflexible financial properties" What is your thought process here? Do you think this kind of thing will encourage the provision of more houses? Do you have a sense for how making housing an exceptionally financially risky asset will influence whether or not investors are interested in building more housing, and how they have to perform initial pricing to offset rent-fixing and regulatory risk?
  • kelipso 3y ago
    A lot of the problems would fix themselves if it was a lot harder for people to own a second home. Would make housing cheaper for one.
    • bombcar 3y ago
      There's about 10 million "second homes" in the USA by some estimates, but that doesn't necessary say how they're actually used - some are vacation homes that are empty when not used (and are in locations that are effectively "worthless" except for vacationing) whereas others will be a technically owned second home but actually inhabited by a child or relative of the owner. The mortgage interest lack-of-deduction for most (because of the increase in the standard deduction) also affects things. What we likely should be doing is making it easier to build second homes and "dump" them on the market even for a bit of a profit, so as to increase supply.
  • klodolph 3y ago
    The logic here is that there are two different competing concerns—the use of housing as an investment (money in, money out) and the use of housing as a place to live. There’s a lot of legislation that shifts the balance one way or the other. Things like property tax caps and zoning regulations shift the balance towards house-as-investment, and things like rent increase caps shift it the other way. If you don’t buy in to libertarian laissez-faire economics, which most people don’t, then this makes sense. (“Makes sense” is a much lower bar than “has the effect that we want it to have.”)
• trident5000 3y ago
  It shouldnt be allowed for people to raise rent on the property they own? Thats an absurd idea. People have been complaining about not having the home they want in the location they want since the beginning of mankind.
  • klodolph 3y ago
    The parent comment is complaining about the specific amount, $500, and indeed, raising the rent by a large amount (defined percentagewise) is illegal in many jurisdictions. So it seems difficult to come the idea that it is somehow absurd.
    • trident5000 3y ago
      Price controls dont work. This is economics 101 and tested many times in the past and as of recent. All you're doing with artificially constraining price and other regulations is reducing supply in the long run. The issue bubbles and then eventually bursts. However, the issue in congested areas is a matter of physics and people unwilling to relocate. Its not from renters simply fulfilling the pricing demand. I mean what exactly is the long term play in areas like this? Just keep stacking people on top of each other into infinity? Its obviously not realistic.
      • klodolph 3y ago
        You have to define the problem too narrowly in order to say that price controls don’t work. Rental increase caps are not something designed to make the overall housing prices more affordable. That’s just not the goal in the first place. The goal is to provide additional stability to renters. That additional stability will, of course, get priced in.
      • mcv 3y ago
        It's not the rent prices that are constraining the housing market, but the restrictions on building new houses. And in many parts of the US, the prohibition on building anything other than single-family detached homes.
  • 3y ago