The core problem is that if you implement rent control, without a bunch of other policies, all you achieve is to remove potential rental apartments from the mar

The core problem is that if you implement rent control, without a bunch of other policies, all you achieve is to remove potential rental apartments from the market. Either they'll never get built or rental apartments will be sold off and removed from the rental pool once rents drop below a certain relative level compared to the potential sales price for the same apartment (or apartment building). Rent control is fine, if the government at same time steps up and implements policies to make sure that rentable apartments at the rent controlled price are actually available on the market. Rent control makes no difference to me if the end result is that it is completely impossible for me to rent an apartment at any price. I've lived in places with and without strict rent control, and the biggest difference was that in the place without rent control I could easily find several places to rent in the parts of the city I wanted to live in.