7 ms·

Rents fall and listings increase after rent control ends in Argentina

98 points by cbeach 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
1oooqooq 2y ago
or, you know, it's irrelevant as rent fall because nobody have money and listing increase because everyone is leaving.
- hollerith 2y ago
  Demonstrating that any set of facts can be twisted to appear to support any narrative.
  - Gimpei 2y ago
    Or that rent control benefits the insiders and hurts everybody else, including the children of said insiders who won’t be able to find housing.
sharkjacobs 2y ago
> The 2020 Rental Law ... mandated three-year lease terms and required rent to be paid in pesos—a currency rapidly losing value due to rampant inflation. > Faced with inflation and rigid restrictions, landlords were hesitant to sign long-term leases. Many either set excessively high rents to hedge against future inflation or withdrew their properties from the rental market altogether. Others opted to sell in U.S. dollars or list them on short-term rental platforms like Airbnb, where they could charge in foreign currencies.
- tivert 2y ago
  So basically, the effects are mainly due to deficiencies with the previous law, and probably can't be generalized to rent control in general (though I'm sure many will try). For instance, I don't think I've ever heard of a rent control law that allowed setting "excessively high rents" to try to preemptively counter it. I think it's a lot more typical to take the current market prices and limit the rate of future increases.
  - renewiltord 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - onemoresoop 2y ago
      Your use of communism here is a strawman to not talk about socialism. Socialist programs is what kept the world from going back to feudalism.
      - iphoneisbetter 2y ago
        [flagged]
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - tivert 2y ago
      > Real Communism hasn’t been tried. Once we do it, it’s going to work. Come on. You've said nothing of value and had no insight. No one's talking about full-on central planning. You've just uttered a strawman slogan for the unrestrained free market. But the unrestrained free market would objectively suck, which anyone with two brain cells who is not high on ideology can predict. It's most prefect expression, anarcho-capitalism, is the ununoctium of economic systems (as it would immediately decay into something very different).
      - jjk166 2y ago
        The comment was drawing a parallel - the same way people say "real communism hasn't been tried yet" the root comment is saying "real rent control hasn't been tried yet" and the complaints about the first statement apply to the second. It is not an argument for an unrestrained free market.
      - ptsneves 2y ago
        > You've said nothing of value and had no insight. No one's talking about full-on central planning. You've just uttered a strawman slogan for the unrestrained free market. The case in discussion is not a full-on central planning, just core socialist policies that often fail. It is legitimate to regard the excuses as just excuses. > But the unrestrained free market would objectively suck, which anyone with two brain cells who is not high on ideology can predict. This is not the case of the article, nor is suggested by the parent. The housing code or other technical regulations regarding housing have not been removed, thus jumping to ideologies and disparaging them is besides the point[1] and a fallacy. What was lifted was a very common policy solution for the housing problem and it happened that things improved in its absence. Wherever people have been victims of these policies it is natural people respond to supporters with these simple slogans. Those are 2 straw men there :D. [1] I recently went through the anarchist political movements of the 19th century and some believed the State is immoral because it is a manifestation of violent power. We live in times where people try to excuse the State's violence primacy with laws which are moral, and that is actually the worst. It reliefs them of the burden that is to take something from the other fellow men. Whenever somebody suggests regulating something about private property they should imagine a mobster coming for extortion money. Maybe the mobster is a really really good guy and we kind of can choose the mobster, but he is still a mobster. I find this moral weight important to keep us and the powers that be from being a bad mobster.
coolhand2120 2y ago
If you have a law that stops certain kinds of private agreements, and then you repeal this law, it is logical to see those kinds of private agreements increase.
baybal2 2y ago
[dead]
masijo 2y ago
As someone who signed contract to rent recently, "rent falling" is beyond bullshit. Listing increase is true, doesn't mean they're "good" listings though.
- jjk166 2y ago
  > "While rents are still up in nominal terms, many renters are getting better deals than ever, with a 40% decline in the real price of rental properties when adjusted for inflation since last October," The Wall Street Journal reported.
throw0101d 2y ago
With rent control, it seems to be it mostly (always?) seems to be implemented in a binary fashion: a geographic area tends to have most (all?) units controlled or not. When it is removed, then folks can be grandfathered in, so anyone who stays put is fine, but once a unit becomes vacant the unit becomes uncontrolled. I'd be curious to see a 'sliding scale' implementation: * all newly built units are uncontrolled * all units that are 5-10 years old have a maximum rental increase of 3xCPI * all units that are 10-15 years old have a maximum rental increase of 2xCPI * units >15 years old are rent controlled (~CPI increases) Is anyone aware of jurisdiction(s) that have done such a thing?
- burkaman 2y ago
  Not a sliding scale, but Washington DC has rent control only for buildings built before 1975.
- sroussey 2y ago
  California tends to work this way. Rent control (government chosen pricing) tends to affect only older buildings, not new ones, and is for rent increases not original rent. Places that implemented it (SF, Santa Monica, West Hollywood) now have the highest rents. People that are grandfathered never move. Reduces available locations by artificially scarcity. Landlords love it. Grandfathered renters love it. People moving in need to afford much more than older residents and hate it.
  - azinman2 2y ago
    It also means that in places like SF those who built the cities character and provide the backbone of all kinds of services can stay. If the market price came to be they’d have to move, and then we’d only have tech workers who have way more elasticity in their budgets than kindergarten teachers. You have to recognize reality is messy and you need a mix.
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      That is how functioning markets need to work. If demand goes up, then the market price goes up. If the price goes up and tech workers want their kids to go to school, they need to pay teachers more. Right now, there are crappy 100 duct tape fixes. Maybe some teachers are in rent controlled places paying 25% market price, and some are paying full market. Some teachers are in City owned housing that only teachers qualify for. In short, it isnt a functioning market. For it to be a functioning market, you have to let the taxpayers confront the question of if they would rather pay for schools or not have them.
kragen 2y ago
the description of the previous (bad) law as 'rent control' represents malicious disregard for the truth. 'rent control' idiomatically means, in english, limitations on raising rents over the entire period of time a tenant inhabits a property, not over the predetermined term of a lease. the wikipedia article explains: > The loose term "rent control" covers a spectrum of regulation which can vary from setting the absolute amount of rent that can be charged, with no allowed increases, to placing different limits on the amount that rent can increase; these restrictions may continue between tenancies, or may be applied only within the duration of a tenancy. argentina has never, to my knowledge, had rent control in any of these senses. when the lease expired, after three years (or previously two) there was no restriction on how much the landlord could demand in rent to sign a new lease. commonly it would be several times the old rent, due to inflation. three years ago the dollar was 184 pesos https://dolarhistorico.com/cotizacion-dolar-blue/mes/septiembre-2021 https://dolarhistorico.com/cotizacion-dolar-blue/mes/septiem... so a 250 dollar rent would have been 46000 pesos. now it's 1230 pesos https://dolarhistorico.com/cotizacion-dolar-blue/mes/agosto-2023 https://dolarhistorico.com/cotizacion-dolar-blue/mes/agosto-... so those 46000 pesos would be worth 37 dollars without the yearly inflation adjustment the text of the article sort of admits this by omission, while implying the contrary through its dishonest choice of wording. this is in sharp contrast to the integrity and reliability i normally expect from reason—i often disagree with their values but rarely with their facts this has misled commenters here such as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41659436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41659436
- engineer_22 2y ago
  This law isn't rent control, because it's not strong enough to be considered rent control. OK, that seems like an acceptable argument. But, at least according to MSN, it did have effects on real estate concomitant to the arguments against rent control. Interesting result. Argentina is in the midst of a grand experiment.
  - kragen 2y ago
    yes, i agree
- 2y ago
feedforward 2y ago
Argentina is in a deep recession right now. People having no money can make rents fall as well.
MisterBastahrd 2y ago
Argentina never had rent control. Rent control keeps rents low for indefinite periods of time. Argentina simply mandated 3 year leases.
dfilppi 2y ago
[dead]
mc32 2y ago
Sadly, these results are going to be ignored by those in favor of rent controls —of course these same people will cite any undergrad study results to support whatever policy they agree with. Hard numbers? No way. Kamala is talking about grocery price controls (and calls it gauging laws). However, this is a dubious proposition given that the grocery retail industry is notorious for slim margins 1 - 1.5% profit margins. Like what the hell is this going to accomplish, other than create shortages in some areas? It’s dumb. I don’t know who in hell is giving her economic advice, but they need to fire whoever the hell he or she is.
- MisterBastahrd 2y ago
  You could have actually paid attention to what she said instead of taking the MAGA approach where you only hear what you want to hear and jettison everything else. Her plan for grocery price controls was about emergency situations to prevent gouging. Every single state in the union which has political representation that YOU like already has such laws in place, they just aren't enforced unless there's political theater to be made. The simple fact of the matter is that vendors will sell their product anyway. It takes time to bring product to the market and most food is highly perishable. To the extent that the US subsidizes agriculture, there's absolutely no excuse for gouging during emergencies.
  - mc32 2y ago
    If you listen to her speeches, she tries to weave this in when talking about inflation: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/a84rQCyQ7mk https://www.youtube.com/shorts/a84rQCyQ7mk So she's trying to imply price gouging laws would bring down inflation. When people talk about inflation they mean a national economic trend, they don't mean a very transient increase in the price of goods during an emergency, such as hurricanes, etc. Also, during emergencies, there is not much gouging in groceries (she heavily implies she's addressing grocery prices), but rather in other goods (plywood, fuel, generators, etc).
  - TMWNN 2y ago
    >Her plan for grocery price controls was about emergency situations to prevent gouging. Is the US in an emergency situation regarding grocery prices? Has a hurricane hit the entire country at once? PS - NYC instituted rent control in 1943 as an "emergency" remedy during WW2.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
MisterDizzy 2y ago
This is the main difference in politics, as far as I can tell: Some people push for things that seem really compassionate and intuitively good and right, but actually make the problem a lot worse. But to argue this is almost always futile because all most people seem able to absorb is that you're disagreeing with their intuitively compassionate position, not that you're trying to posit a solution that actually functions, so in their eyes you're an existential threat to them.
- lbhdc 2y ago
  The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
  > not that you're trying to posit a solution that actually functions Give me an example of a "solution that actually functions," to any problem you know a lot about, during a period of high inflation.
  - beaglessss 2y ago
    Legalizing floating market exchange rates.
  - SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
    Tariffs on imports. I saw FIRST HAND that overnight we went from only quoting in China and Taiwan, to quoting and getting deals in USA. I was writing the quotes, I was approving them. It turned right back around in 2021.
    - nullindividual 2y ago
      Tariffs are a tax on Americans. The stuff still gets imported -- at a higher cost to cover the tariff.
      - gadflyinyoureye 2y ago
djohnston 2y ago
Like many policies on the left, it’s easier to go with the vibes than actually look at the results and see if it’s a good idea. Rent control never works. It has been played out on every continent save Antarctica and it always leads to worse outcomes.
- helf 2y ago
  [dead]
- ProxCoques 2y ago
  There are many implementations of rent controls. Argentina's were rather badly done. Compare to: Germany - where landlords can't charge more than 10% above the local average rent. Spain - where landlords can increase rent only if they improve the property, but the increase can't be more than 20%. Netherlands - where one in three homes in the Netherlands are rent-controlled, and rental apartments are capped at under €1,000 per month. France - rent control applies to furnished and unfurnished properties. Scotland - government introduced emergency legislation to cap rent increases in the private sector at 3% as of 2022. Sweden - rent controls apply to new and older buildings, with local market conditions setting the regulated rents. New York City - a Rent Guidelines Board sets rent increases based on inflation, and landlords are required to renew leases.
  - indigo0086 2y ago
    Rent controls limit the potential of the underlying asset by having Tennants hoard their current rent in ever degrading apartments. Its an artificial limitation on a resource that can be renewed to lower costs but you end up with a massive amount of rent hoarders afraid to shop around for better housing. It is such a disruption to incentives for both renters and home providers.
  - Gud 2y ago
    From my experience, the rent control in Sweden is a total disaster.
- undersuit 2y ago
JadoJodo 2y ago
Freakonomics had an episode on rent control a few years ago that I found interesting. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-rent-control-doesnt-work/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-rent-control-doesnt-wor...
Me000 2y ago
*
golergka 2y ago
In other news, dollar is cheaper than it was in February, national oil company just announced that the gas prices will be going down, and dollar deposits in banks have also gone up 40%.
julianeon 2y ago
I would be cautious about using San Francisco about an example where things could be improved by repealing rent control. The tl;dr of this article is this line - it increased supply: > But after the repeal, Buenos Aires saw a doubling of available rental units, and rental prices have stabilized. That would not happen in SF. One issue is rent control. Another, separate, issue is housing/rental supply. Getting apartments built in SF is notoriously difficult. It's not realistic to think you can double the supply of available rental units here imho. That is a political ask that people have been trying to do for ages, and which other people, homeowners, have been successfully blocking for the same amount of time. While there's an ongoing effort to push against that, I would expect the blocking to continue, successfully as it has been until now.
undersuit 2y ago
I'd like to point out this is propaganda. The only source is actually a report[1] from January this year, that's where the line, "Buenos Aires saw a doubling of available rental units, and rental prices have stabilized" comes from. It took me a lot of time to find it a month or so ago when the Libertarians on Reddit were running victory laps after it got picked up by AR15.com's forum[2] early August. [1] https://www.eleconomista.es/economia/noticias/12935188/08/24/milei-obra-el-milagro-con-los-alquileres-la-oferta-de-vivienda-se-dispara-tras-desregular-el-mercado-en-argentina.html https://www.eleconomista.es/economia/noticias/12935188/08/24... [2] https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/Milei-ends-rent-control-Supply-increases-200-in-six-months-Prices-go-DOWN-/5-2741017/ https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/Milei-ends-rent-control-...
- SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
  Are you attacking the content or the source?
  - undersuit 2y ago
    You.
jmyeet 2y ago
We, in the US, have a housing affordability crisis. Therea re a number of causes for this: 1. Cities are reaching the limit they can sprawl while still effectively being the same city. Atlanta springs to mind; 2. People vote for politicians who restrict supply to increase the value of something they see as an asset rather than something simply to provide shelter; Increasing house prices are simply stealing from the next generation. That's all. Minimum lot sizes, SFH only zoning, bans on MDU/ADUs, etc all exist solely to increase house prices; 3. Politicians only ever tackle the problem from the demand side eg mortgage interest tax deductions, first home owner grants. All this does is increase the prices by the induced demand. It's a wealth transfer to the existing homeowners. 4. Landlords. In an ideal world, they wouldn't exist. This almost happened in the UK and it was surprisingly simple [1]. They are quite literally and figuratively rent-seekers. The YIMBYs will tell you "build! build! build!". This is overly simplistic. It also depends on what you build. Look at Manhattan that is building ultra-luxury skyscrapers. There is no trickle down effect here. It's simply money laundering and parking capital. What we need is a healthy supply of quality, affordable housing. We simply won't get that relying on private landlords. The only solution to thisis so-called "social housing". That is, government owned and supplied housing. Vienna is a prime example here where over 60% of the housing is social housing. Americans will tend to immediately rject this as "projects" or "ghettoes" (or, worse, "socialism"). Housing unaffordability is the number one factor leading to houselessness. It's not even close. Denying people shelter is, quite literally, state violence. It is causing direct and immediate harm for the sake of wealth accumulation by a few. So where does rent control fit in all this? It can be a short-term aid at stabilizing prices but it is not a long-term solution. It tends to make it impossible for people to move. Landlords will resort to unethical or even illegal tactics to force out tenants so they can relist at market rates. Or they'll leave units vacant (IIRC there are 100K+ purposefully vacant units in Mnahattan). Pretty much our entire society is designed to extract wealth from the poorest through rent, student debt, housing debt, medical debt, vehicle debt and maintenance (because in 99% of the US you cannot exist without a car). Billionaires spend big to block public transit [2]. Why do you think that is? [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-landlords-surprisingly-simple-solution-to-uk-housing-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-... [2]: https://archive.is/UFujh https://archive.is/UFujh
- 2y ago
cbeach 2y ago
@dang - looks like this article has been flagged tactically for ideological reasons. Can you please restore it to view?
- dang 2y ago
  Yes - fixed now. But please send these requests to hn@ycombinator.com because @dang is a no op that I run across only randomly!
  - cbeach 2y ago
    Thank you very much. I will email next time.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
maxglute 2y ago
Seems clear rent controls don't work in a hyper inflating economy where land lords can't lockin rent for multiple years because 3 years down the road, tenants are paying price of bread for rent. The core problem is the hyper inflation, not the rent control, which under "normal" performing economic conditions will not trigger same set of behaviors, or at least the costs/benefits are not this obvious.
iluvcommunism 2y ago
People respond to incentives. If gas was mandated at 25 cents a gallon every station would be empty.
- beaglessss 2y ago
  You could still buy it from a guy with a 40 gallon drum on a flatbed though. Cash only of course.

98 points by cbeach 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

1oooqooq 2y ago

or, you know, it's irrelevant as rent fall because nobody have money and listing increase because everyone is leaving.

hollerith 2y ago
Demonstrating that any set of facts can be twisted to appear to support any narrative.
- Gimpei 2y ago
  Or that rent control benefits the insiders and hurts everybody else, including the children of said insiders who won’t be able to find housing.

sharkjacobs 2y ago

> The 2020 Rental Law ... mandated three-year lease terms and required rent to be paid in pesos—a currency rapidly losing value due to rampant inflation. > Faced with inflation and rigid restrictions, landlords were hesitant to sign long-term leases. Many either set excessively high rents to hedge against future inflation or withdrew their properties from the rental market altogether. Others opted to sell in U.S. dollars or list them on short-term rental platforms like Airbnb, where they could charge in foreign currencies.

tivert 2y ago
So basically, the effects are mainly due to deficiencies with the previous law, and probably can't be generalized to rent control in general (though I'm sure many will try). For instance, I don't think I've ever heard of a rent control law that allowed setting "excessively high rents" to try to preemptively counter it. I think it's a lot more typical to take the current market prices and limit the rate of future increases.
- renewiltord 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - onemoresoop 2y ago
    Your use of communism here is a strawman to not talk about socialism. Socialist programs is what kept the world from going back to feudalism.
    - iphoneisbetter 2y ago
      [flagged]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - tivert 2y ago
    > Real Communism hasn’t been tried. Once we do it, it’s going to work. Come on. You've said nothing of value and had no insight. No one's talking about full-on central planning. You've just uttered a strawman slogan for the unrestrained free market. But the unrestrained free market would objectively suck, which anyone with two brain cells who is not high on ideology can predict. It's most prefect expression, anarcho-capitalism, is the ununoctium of economic systems (as it would immediately decay into something very different).
    - jjk166 2y ago
      The comment was drawing a parallel - the same way people say "real communism hasn't been tried yet" the root comment is saying "real rent control hasn't been tried yet" and the complaints about the first statement apply to the second. It is not an argument for an unrestrained free market.
    - ptsneves 2y ago
      > You've said nothing of value and had no insight. No one's talking about full-on central planning. You've just uttered a strawman slogan for the unrestrained free market. The case in discussion is not a full-on central planning, just core socialist policies that often fail. It is legitimate to regard the excuses as just excuses. > But the unrestrained free market would objectively suck, which anyone with two brain cells who is not high on ideology can predict. This is not the case of the article, nor is suggested by the parent. The housing code or other technical regulations regarding housing have not been removed, thus jumping to ideologies and disparaging them is besides the point[1] and a fallacy. What was lifted was a very common policy solution for the housing problem and it happened that things improved in its absence. Wherever people have been victims of these policies it is natural people respond to supporters with these simple slogans. Those are 2 straw men there :D. [1] I recently went through the anarchist political movements of the 19th century and some believed the State is immoral because it is a manifestation of violent power. We live in times where people try to excuse the State's violence primacy with laws which are moral, and that is actually the worst. It reliefs them of the burden that is to take something from the other fellow men. Whenever somebody suggests regulating something about private property they should imagine a mobster coming for extortion money. Maybe the mobster is a really really good guy and we kind of can choose the mobster, but he is still a mobster. I find this moral weight important to keep us and the powers that be from being a bad mobster.

coolhand2120 2y ago

If you have a law that stops certain kinds of private agreements, and then you repeal this law, it is logical to see those kinds of private agreements increase.

baybal2 2y ago

[dead]

masijo 2y ago

As someone who signed contract to rent recently, "rent falling" is beyond bullshit. Listing increase is true, doesn't mean they're "good" listings though.

jjk166 2y ago
> "While rents are still up in nominal terms, many renters are getting better deals than ever, with a 40% decline in the real price of rental properties when adjusted for inflation since last October," The Wall Street Journal reported.

throw0101d 2y ago

With rent control, it seems to be it mostly (always?) seems to be implemented in a binary fashion: a geographic area tends to have most (all?) units controlled or not. When it is removed, then folks can be grandfathered in, so anyone who stays put is fine, but once a unit becomes vacant the unit becomes uncontrolled. I'd be curious to see a 'sliding scale' implementation: * all newly built units are uncontrolled * all units that are 5-10 years old have a maximum rental increase of 3xCPI * all units that are 10-15 years old have a maximum rental increase of 2xCPI * units >15 years old are rent controlled (~CPI increases) Is anyone aware of jurisdiction(s) that have done such a thing?

burkaman 2y ago
Not a sliding scale, but Washington DC has rent control only for buildings built before 1975.
sroussey 2y ago
California tends to work this way. Rent control (government chosen pricing) tends to affect only older buildings, not new ones, and is for rent increases not original rent. Places that implemented it (SF, Santa Monica, West Hollywood) now have the highest rents. People that are grandfathered never move. Reduces available locations by artificially scarcity. Landlords love it. Grandfathered renters love it. People moving in need to afford much more than older residents and hate it.
- azinman2 2y ago
  It also means that in places like SF those who built the cities character and provide the backbone of all kinds of services can stay. If the market price came to be they’d have to move, and then we’d only have tech workers who have way more elasticity in their budgets than kindergarten teachers. You have to recognize reality is messy and you need a mix.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    That is how functioning markets need to work. If demand goes up, then the market price goes up. If the price goes up and tech workers want their kids to go to school, they need to pay teachers more. Right now, there are crappy 100 duct tape fixes. Maybe some teachers are in rent controlled places paying 25% market price, and some are paying full market. Some teachers are in City owned housing that only teachers qualify for. In short, it isnt a functioning market. For it to be a functioning market, you have to let the taxpayers confront the question of if they would rather pay for schools or not have them.

kragen 2y ago

the description of the previous (bad) law as 'rent control' represents malicious disregard for the truth. 'rent control' idiomatically means, in english, limitations on raising rents over the entire period of time a tenant inhabits a property, not over the predetermined term of a lease. the wikipedia article explains: > The loose term "rent control" covers a spectrum of regulation which can vary from setting the absolute amount of rent that can be charged, with no allowed increases, to placing different limits on the amount that rent can increase; these restrictions may continue between tenancies, or may be applied only within the duration of a tenancy. argentina has never, to my knowledge, had rent control in any of these senses. when the lease expired, after three years (or previously two) there was no restriction on how much the landlord could demand in rent to sign a new lease. commonly it would be several times the old rent, due to inflation. three years ago the dollar was 184 pesos https://dolarhistorico.com/cotizacion-dolar-blue/mes/septiembre-2021 https://dolarhistorico.com/cotizacion-dolar-blue/mes/septiem... so a 250 dollar rent would have been 46000 pesos. now it's 1230 pesos https://dolarhistorico.com/cotizacion-dolar-blue/mes/agosto-2023 https://dolarhistorico.com/cotizacion-dolar-blue/mes/agosto-... so those 46000 pesos would be worth 37 dollars without the yearly inflation adjustment the text of the article sort of admits this by omission, while implying the contrary through its dishonest choice of wording. this is in sharp contrast to the integrity and reliability i normally expect from reason—i often disagree with their values but rarely with their facts this has misled commenters here such as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41659436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41659436

engineer_22 2y ago
This law isn't rent control, because it's not strong enough to be considered rent control. OK, that seems like an acceptable argument. But, at least according to MSN, it did have effects on real estate concomitant to the arguments against rent control. Interesting result. Argentina is in the midst of a grand experiment.
- kragen 2y ago
  yes, i agree
2y ago

feedforward 2y ago

Argentina is in a deep recession right now. People having no money can make rents fall as well.

MisterBastahrd 2y ago

Argentina never had rent control. Rent control keeps rents low for indefinite periods of time. Argentina simply mandated 3 year leases.

dfilppi 2y ago

[dead]

mc32 2y ago

Sadly, these results are going to be ignored by those in favor of rent controls —of course these same people will cite any undergrad study results to support whatever policy they agree with. Hard numbers? No way. Kamala is talking about grocery price controls (and calls it gauging laws). However, this is a dubious proposition given that the grocery retail industry is notorious for slim margins 1 - 1.5% profit margins. Like what the hell is this going to accomplish, other than create shortages in some areas? It’s dumb. I don’t know who in hell is giving her economic advice, but they need to fire whoever the hell he or she is.

MisterBastahrd 2y ago
You could have actually paid attention to what she said instead of taking the MAGA approach where you only hear what you want to hear and jettison everything else. Her plan for grocery price controls was about emergency situations to prevent gouging. Every single state in the union which has political representation that YOU like already has such laws in place, they just aren't enforced unless there's political theater to be made. The simple fact of the matter is that vendors will sell their product anyway. It takes time to bring product to the market and most food is highly perishable. To the extent that the US subsidizes agriculture, there's absolutely no excuse for gouging during emergencies.
- mc32 2y ago
  If you listen to her speeches, she tries to weave this in when talking about inflation: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/a84rQCyQ7mk https://www.youtube.com/shorts/a84rQCyQ7mk So she's trying to imply price gouging laws would bring down inflation. When people talk about inflation they mean a national economic trend, they don't mean a very transient increase in the price of goods during an emergency, such as hurricanes, etc. Also, during emergencies, there is not much gouging in groceries (she heavily implies she's addressing grocery prices), but rather in other goods (plywood, fuel, generators, etc).
- TMWNN 2y ago
  >Her plan for grocery price controls was about emergency situations to prevent gouging. Is the US in an emergency situation regarding grocery prices? Has a hurricane hit the entire country at once? PS - NYC instituted rent control in 1943 as an "emergency" remedy during WW2.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

MisterDizzy 2y ago

This is the main difference in politics, as far as I can tell: Some people push for things that seem really compassionate and intuitively good and right, but actually make the problem a lot worse. But to argue this is almost always futile because all most people seem able to absorb is that you're disagreeing with their intuitively compassionate position, not that you're trying to posit a solution that actually functions, so in their eyes you're an existential threat to them.

lbhdc 2y ago
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
doctorpangloss 2y ago
> not that you're trying to posit a solution that actually functions Give me an example of a "solution that actually functions," to any problem you know a lot about, during a period of high inflation.
- beaglessss 2y ago
  Legalizing floating market exchange rates.
- SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
  Tariffs on imports. I saw FIRST HAND that overnight we went from only quoting in China and Taiwan, to quoting and getting deals in USA. I was writing the quotes, I was approving them. It turned right back around in 2021.
  - nullindividual 2y ago
    Tariffs are a tax on Americans. The stuff still gets imported -- at a higher cost to cover the tariff.
    - gadflyinyoureye 2y ago

djohnston 2y ago

Like many policies on the left, it’s easier to go with the vibes than actually look at the results and see if it’s a good idea. Rent control never works. It has been played out on every continent save Antarctica and it always leads to worse outcomes.

helf 2y ago
[dead]
ProxCoques 2y ago
There are many implementations of rent controls. Argentina's were rather badly done. Compare to: Germany - where landlords can't charge more than 10% above the local average rent. Spain - where landlords can increase rent only if they improve the property, but the increase can't be more than 20%. Netherlands - where one in three homes in the Netherlands are rent-controlled, and rental apartments are capped at under €1,000 per month. France - rent control applies to furnished and unfurnished properties. Scotland - government introduced emergency legislation to cap rent increases in the private sector at 3% as of 2022. Sweden - rent controls apply to new and older buildings, with local market conditions setting the regulated rents. New York City - a Rent Guidelines Board sets rent increases based on inflation, and landlords are required to renew leases.
- indigo0086 2y ago
  Rent controls limit the potential of the underlying asset by having Tennants hoard their current rent in ever degrading apartments. Its an artificial limitation on a resource that can be renewed to lower costs but you end up with a massive amount of rent hoarders afraid to shop around for better housing. It is such a disruption to incentives for both renters and home providers.
- Gud 2y ago
  From my experience, the rent control in Sweden is a total disaster.
undersuit 2y ago

JadoJodo 2y ago

Freakonomics had an episode on rent control a few years ago that I found interesting. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-rent-control-doesnt-work/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-rent-control-doesnt-wor...

Me000 2y ago

golergka 2y ago

In other news, dollar is cheaper than it was in February, national oil company just announced that the gas prices will be going down, and dollar deposits in banks have also gone up 40%.

julianeon 2y ago

I would be cautious about using San Francisco about an example where things could be improved by repealing rent control. The tl;dr of this article is this line - it increased supply: > But after the repeal, Buenos Aires saw a doubling of available rental units, and rental prices have stabilized. That would not happen in SF. One issue is rent control. Another, separate, issue is housing/rental supply. Getting apartments built in SF is notoriously difficult. It's not realistic to think you can double the supply of available rental units here imho. That is a political ask that people have been trying to do for ages, and which other people, homeowners, have been successfully blocking for the same amount of time. While there's an ongoing effort to push against that, I would expect the blocking to continue, successfully as it has been until now.

undersuit 2y ago

I'd like to point out this is propaganda. The only source is actually a report[1] from January this year, that's where the line, "Buenos Aires saw a doubling of available rental units, and rental prices have stabilized" comes from. It took me a lot of time to find it a month or so ago when the Libertarians on Reddit were running victory laps after it got picked up by AR15.com's forum[2] early August. [1] https://www.eleconomista.es/economia/noticias/12935188/08/24/milei-obra-el-milagro-con-los-alquileres-la-oferta-de-vivienda-se-dispara-tras-desregular-el-mercado-en-argentina.html https://www.eleconomista.es/economia/noticias/12935188/08/24... [2] https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/Milei-ends-rent-control-Supply-increases-200-in-six-months-Prices-go-DOWN-/5-2741017/ https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/Milei-ends-rent-control-...

SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
Are you attacking the content or the source?
- undersuit 2y ago
  You.

jmyeet 2y ago

We, in the US, have a housing affordability crisis. Therea re a number of causes for this: 1. Cities are reaching the limit they can sprawl while still effectively being the same city. Atlanta springs to mind; 2. People vote for politicians who restrict supply to increase the value of something they see as an asset rather than something simply to provide shelter; Increasing house prices are simply stealing from the next generation. That's all. Minimum lot sizes, SFH only zoning, bans on MDU/ADUs, etc all exist solely to increase house prices; 3. Politicians only ever tackle the problem from the demand side eg mortgage interest tax deductions, first home owner grants. All this does is increase the prices by the induced demand. It's a wealth transfer to the existing homeowners. 4. Landlords. In an ideal world, they wouldn't exist. This almost happened in the UK and it was surprisingly simple [1]. They are quite literally and figuratively rent-seekers. The YIMBYs will tell you "build! build! build!". This is overly simplistic. It also depends on what you build. Look at Manhattan that is building ultra-luxury skyscrapers. There is no trickle down effect here. It's simply money laundering and parking capital. What we need is a healthy supply of quality, affordable housing. We simply won't get that relying on private landlords. The only solution to thisis so-called "social housing". That is, government owned and supplied housing. Vienna is a prime example here where over 60% of the housing is social housing. Americans will tend to immediately rject this as "projects" or "ghettoes" (or, worse, "socialism"). Housing unaffordability is the number one factor leading to houselessness. It's not even close. Denying people shelter is, quite literally, state violence. It is causing direct and immediate harm for the sake of wealth accumulation by a few. So where does rent control fit in all this? It can be a short-term aid at stabilizing prices but it is not a long-term solution. It tends to make it impossible for people to move. Landlords will resort to unethical or even illegal tactics to force out tenants so they can relist at market rates. Or they'll leave units vacant (IIRC there are 100K+ purposefully vacant units in Mnahattan). Pretty much our entire society is designed to extract wealth from the poorest through rent, student debt, housing debt, medical debt, vehicle debt and maintenance (because in 99% of the US you cannot exist without a car). Billionaires spend big to block public transit [2]. Why do you think that is? [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-landlords-surprisingly-simple-solution-to-uk-housing-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-... [2]: https://archive.is/UFujh https://archive.is/UFujh

2y ago

cbeach 2y ago

@dang - looks like this article has been flagged tactically for ideological reasons. Can you please restore it to view?

dang 2y ago
Yes - fixed now. But please send these requests to hn@ycombinator.com because @dang is a no op that I run across only randomly!
- cbeach 2y ago
  Thank you very much. I will email next time.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

maxglute 2y ago

Seems clear rent controls don't work in a hyper inflating economy where land lords can't lockin rent for multiple years because 3 years down the road, tenants are paying price of bread for rent. The core problem is the hyper inflation, not the rent control, which under "normal" performing economic conditions will not trigger same set of behaviors, or at least the costs/benefits are not this obvious.

iluvcommunism 2y ago

People respond to incentives. If gas was mandated at 25 cents a gallon every station would be empty.

beaglessss 2y ago
You could still buy it from a guy with a 40 gallon drum on a flatbed though. Cash only of course.