Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets • Hacker News Board

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#501

Post by mjevans » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

tehjoker wrote: post #478

gameman144 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could just as easily say that you're missing the opposite point: why should policy prevent new people from moving in? In either scenario, policy will disadvantage one group and advantage another. Any policies that aim to give stability to long-term tenants is liable to disadvantage new and shorter-term tenants. There's no natural law dictating that people should be forced to move out, but there's also no natural…

I agree, but I don't think the literal lord of a property should be able to force people to migrate by demanding higher tribute. There should be a rational humane process that isn't driven by simple greed.

As a suggestion for a process...

Pick a duration upon which to re-evaluate the value of property. Distribute this roughly evenly over all the property everywhere so that it isn't all at once.

When a property's up for evaluation, offer it for 'sale' via a distributed dutch auction as part of a block with similar properties in the same jurisdiction (roughly, zipcodes, or maybe divided up should work).

The block is bid on as a whole, with up to 25% (rounded up) of any of it excluded from the bids (high or low) and with any 'inspection noted defects' (post sale) deducted from the transfer price of the property. Price for a given unit would be proportional to the previously evaluated (by market sale or bid) price of the property among the whole group. Any units not receiving sufficient bidding coverage to provide a fair price should be re-tried with the aim towards the median value of the next group of properties in that area.

The resulting offer is then forwarded to the residents as proof of their new property value and the basis for all taxes upon it. The resident has an option to accept that value anytime within 8 months, for a specified date of no more than 6 months from when they've accepted the offer.

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#502

Post by jboog » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #459

exporectomy wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imo we should just solve this issue once and for all by supplying government housing to anyone at a low price, but there seems to be little political will for that. Where would that end? If you always build more to accommodate any poor or homeless people, they'll come from other cities to enjoy the cheap housing.

This is a national problem requiring a federal solution. Anything less will be exploited by desperate people. Don't hate the poor players. Hate the rich exploiting them for profit.

What would you propose the federal solution would be?

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#503

Post by skohan » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 2:52 AM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #491

skohan wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't Vienna be an obvious counterexample of your claim?

Which claim, and how?

Vienna has achieved a very good result with socialized housing, in terms of keeping costs down and providing adequate housing stock. It seems like an example of the government solving the problem of housing better than the market.

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#504

Post by Gimpei » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 3:01 AM UTC

Xylakant wrote: post #312

el_nahual wrote: post #152

An issue that many commenters here are missing is that the problem with rent control will manifest more sharply in the future. Sure, the impact today seems relatively equitable: a windfall for people that rent today coupled with a small drop in supply. But fast forward 10 or 20 years and the situation looks far worse: everyone who got a windfall today is still living in the same apartment, whereas anyone trying to en…

A counterexample is Vienna, which utilizes a well balanced system of rent-control and social housing to have incredibly low rents and still a stable supply of flats. One tweak they apply is that rent-control does not apply to new developments, so creating new flats is more lucrative than turning old buildings into luxury developments. The city also acts as a competitor, driving prices down by offering cheap flats. Th…

This is interesting but doesn't appear to be evidence. Any studies with a plausible identifying strategy? It could be, for example, that rents wouldn't have gone up much regardless.

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#505

Post by jpambrun » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 3:04 AM UTC

el_nahual wrote: post #152

An issue that many commenters here are missing is that the problem with rent control will manifest more sharply in the future. Sure, the impact today seems relatively equitable: a windfall for people that rent today coupled with a small drop in supply. But fast forward 10 or 20 years and the situation looks far worse: everyone who got a windfall today is still living in the same apartment, whereas anyone trying to en…

Rent are controlled in Quebec since as far as I can remember. Rent are affordable in Montreal and supply is not a problem.

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#506

Post by jboog » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 3:05 AM UTC

lutoma wrote: post #465

JPKab wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is plenty of scientific denialism on the right. Along with anti nuclear, the belief that rent control is a remotely good idea is an example of scientific denialism on the left. There are some decent arguments to be made against nuclear but rent control has always always caused more harm than good everywhere it's been tried.

Proponents of nuclear power labelling everyone who does not unequivocally support it "science deniers" is such infuriating populism. Nuclear power obviously has immense benefits, but there are also undeniable risks associated with it. It's entirely possible to be in favor or against it while considering the exact same scientific facts depending on which of these you consider more important, no "scientific denialism"…

Coal kills thousands of people a year in the US (13,000 if you believe the extreme estimates)

Less than 20 people have died in Nuclear related accidents in the history of this technologies use. And almost every single one of those were unrelated to the nuclear technology itself (electrocution, other workplace accidents that could happen in any power plant)

If you want to lump in Chernobyl and Fukushima we are still only talking 3-4000 deaths in history. And there's zero reason to believe these accidents are likely to ever occur in the US.

So yes, there are "undeniable risks", but they are vastly vastly overstated.

Especially when the "undeniable risk" of climate change is many millions of deaths whilst climate change activists insist we can't use the only technology that can almost entirely eliminate cooking the planet via coal, oil and natural gas.

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#507

Post by jpetso » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 3:05 AM UTC

jboog wrote: post #498

freyir wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Francisco also applies rent control only to older buildings. The effect is that developers only build top-of-market “luxury” housing (often cheaply constructed it rented at luxury rates). This helps them recover their development costs, which they couldn’t recoup on affordable housing.

SF also has some of the most ridiculously onerous zoning laws in the country. A HUGE portion of the city is just giant single family homes or 2-3 story buildings and you are absolutely forbidden from redeveloping them into dense, affordable housing. Change the zoning laws and developers will gladly build affordable market-rate housing.

Yep. Vienna is all mid-rises, basically everywhere throughout the entire city. I imagine that changes the calculus considerably.

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#508

Post by bosswipe » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 3:07 AM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #322

el_nahual wrote: post #152

An issue that many commenters here are missing is that the problem with rent control will manifest more sharply in the future. Sure, the impact today seems relatively equitable: a windfall for people that rent today coupled with a small drop in supply. But fast forward 10 or 20 years and the situation looks far worse: everyone who got a windfall today is still living in the same apartment, whereas anyone trying to en…

There is plenty of scientific denialism on the right. Along with anti nuclear, the belief that rent control is a remotely good idea is an example of scientific denialism on the left. There are some decent arguments to be made against nuclear but rent control has always always caused more harm than good everywhere it's been tried.

Rent control is not scientific denialism. Economics is not a science because nobody ever does controlled experiments. There are also disagreements about what end goal you're trying to optimize for.

Economics is just a bunch of biased political arguments using different priors for assumptions. This is evident when you about different "schools" of economic thought. There are no irreconcilable "schools" of thought in the hard sciences with whole universities dedicated to only one school or another.

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#509

Post by whatshisface » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 3:08 AM UTC

skohan wrote: post #503

whatshisface wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which claim, and how?

Vienna has achieved a very good result with socialized housing, in terms of keeping costs down and providing adequate housing stock. It seems like an example of the government solving the problem of housing better than the market.

Well, it's not like there's a counterfactual Venice with a market to compete with the real Venetian government. But even accepting your claim at face value, all I said was that the government paying construction companies was not likely to outperform landlords paying construction companies by that much, because the best they could do would be to get rid of the (actually quite small) cut that landlords take for themselves. It's not exactly axiomatic that a well-functioning democracy can't sign the same contracts that landlords do, it's just that the amount to be gained is limited by a force all socialists should be intimately familiar with: the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#510

Post by foota » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 3:10 AM UTC

exporectomy wrote: post #432

foota wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rent control, when coupled with other means of ensuring housing is built for those that can afford it, is a reasonable way of ensuring housing for those that can't afford it at the market price. That is, globally applying a cap on rents would be a bad idea, since there would be no incentive to build new housing. However, when coupled with restrictions such as requiring only some fraction of new housing construction t…

> Imo we should just solve this issue once and for all by supplying government housing to anyone at a low price, but there seems to be little political will for that. Where would that end? If you always build more to accommodate any poor or homeless people, they'll come from other cities to enjoy the cheap housing.

Ok? I think all the large cities should do this. If there is a huge influx then so be it. At least my region has plenty of money and space.