I’m against it in general, but it’s going to save me a bundle.
This new year’s day my rent goes up just 3.5% because of a rent control cap.
But my neighbor moved out and the guy who came in is now charged double what had been the rent.
I’m guessing if there were no rent control, we’d all be paying 20% more, but at least it would seem fair to all.
I am for it.
As a renter, I find I have to really search for a place that is within my financial reach even though I make what is nationally regarded as a good salary.
I have seen rents skyrocket over the past five years all because landlords cannot control their insane greed. Fortunately, I have a landlord that is sane.
From a landlord’s perspective, I imagine the argument is that one must stay competitive within the market. If I were a landlord, I would think that charging less would be my competitive edge as I would fill vacancies sooner and would keep tenants longer.
It’s not like the property tax is rising every month or that utilities are going up all the time. Charging enough to cover costs while making a good profit would satisfy me.
The lady upstairs from me pays $450 while the kids below her pay $1250. Same size apartment, different move-in dates (15 year difference, to be exact).
I do feel sorta sorry for my landlord that the annual inflation rate is greater than his annual increase (1.5%). But the way i see it, rent contol is one of those necessary evils in life. Like so many other laws governing the business sector, we wouldn’t need it if businesses were able to discipline themselves and not be so damn rapaciou$.
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“Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.” – Walt Whitman
Rent control is a communist tool. Hey, as a renter that benefits from it, great. As a landlord, getting less than inflation owing to some commie law, it is not a good deal. IIRC, it’s only NY, SF and Berkeley that have rent control. The Supreme Court refuses to hear it on unconstitutional grounds, and many think it’s because NY would really get out of whack if they do so. Also, renters new to the game subsidize those long term renters.
Seriously, rents should be what the market will bear. By controlling rent, you are in fact controlling reinvestment, rebuilding, and basic market forces. You’re also skewing investment decisions.
Its a good thing I have a friend who lives in Zone 2 in London and only payd 55£ a week in rent because of rent control wheras other people a few blocks away are paying £900 a month.
55 pounds a month for rent in London is ridiculous. There’s no possible way you could maintain a building in London for that price that would be suitable for human habitation.
Rent control seems okay in the short run; in the long run, it doesn’t work very well. The effect is to motivate builders to build things other than apartment buildings and to condo-ize existing units, thereby reducing the housing available to renters.
i admit i don’t know too much about it, but market driven rents seem plenty fair to me.
the day someone else dictates what i can charge for rent in my own building is the day it mysteriously burns down while all the tenents are at a landlord-funded picnic in the park. (attendance will be MANDATORY!)
It decreases supply and it makes rents higher than they should be. Price controls, subsidies and other distortions of the price system set by free supply and demand are a bad idea. Hayek in The Use of Knowledge in Society, which i recommend you read, explains it well. Free pricing means the price carries certain information which encourages the individual to do what is best for society as a whole. Manipulating the price removes that incentive.
Actually, it could be argued that your landlord is the insane one. A reasonable person wouldn’t rent an appartment for $400 when there is someone willing to pay $800.
Out of curiousity, what rational do you have for thinking that a landlord should rent their property for less than what he can get for it?
Landlords don’t rent property out of the goodness of their heart. They are trying to make money on their investment.
I asked the city for rent control once. It Never went through but recently some apartments got a $200 month raise, so all the tenants got together & tried to get rent control. Well this really spooky all the other property owners in the area who put pressure on them & got it dropped to a $100month raise. Then the issue of rent control was never bought up again. That was during the tech boom.
This year mine is being raised about 48%. They said cause of higher taxes they have to pay. But I haven’t figured out what those are. So I think rent control would be nice even though it probably wouldn’t benefit me all that much right now.
Rent control also has numerous little side effects, such as encouraging landlords to rent to those unlikely to stay for long, so they can increase rents more often. Basically, it replaces the sort of information that a market system relies on with made up information.