How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing • Hacker News Board

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#101

Post by loumf » Wed, Dec 31, 2008, 3:32 AM UTC

JabavuAdams wrote: post #73

loumf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from anecdotes, do you have access to any data that substantiates the claim that "The rent controlled units went to people with high incomes and political power" -- can you put a figure on it (50%, 60%, higher?). My grandparents lived in rent controlled apartments in NYC that they could not have afforded to stay in -- moved there in the 30's in neighborhoods that filled with gang violence -- but gentrified arou…

> My grandparents lived in rent controlled apartments in NYC that they could not have afforded to stay in [...] This is how rent-control can create shortages. Under rent-control, older people who would otherwise downsize have no incentive to do so. Younger people who might still be able to live with their parents instead rent separate apartments. The fundamental problem is there's not enough housing for everyone to g…

The point of the anecdote was to show how anecdotes aren't a good way to argue. The anecdote doesn't show anything -- not my point, and not yours either.

Their specific story is not the point -- my point was that if you want to cherry-pick anecdotes of a program not working, one can always counter-argue with other anecdotes.

Either you believe that it is in the public interest to have some availability of low-income housing or you don't. I do think it's in my interest and I accept that I will pay more to have it be available.

Is rent-control the best way to achieve that goal -- I don't know -- this isn't an area of my expertise (judging from this thread, it isn't any HNer's) -- I haven't heard anyone propose something better -- just complain about it based on hearsay.

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#102

Post by yummyfajitas » Wed, Dec 31, 2008, 3:37 AM UTC

calambrac wrote: post #99

yummyfajitas wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you're an owner charging whatever crazy price you can get in the LES as passive income on top of doing whatever you do as a day job, you're not interested in going out and spending the energy on amping production of more housing units." So basically, you believe landlords/builders are 1) greedy when it comes to raising rents 2) not greedy when it comes to building more houses. And superpowerful, able to prevent a…

"So basically, you believe landlords/builders are 1) greedy when it comes to raising rents 2) not greedy when it comes to building more houses." Yes. Believe it or not, there are a ton of people who don't act exactly how economic theory says they maybe should. "And superpowerful, able to prevent any other greedy people from building housing and renting it for a profit." When you're out of new land to build on (NYC or…

"Believe it or not, there are a ton of people who don't act exactly how economic theory says they maybe should."

All it takes is a few people to behave greedily. And again, how come the condo market in NYC doesn't have these problems?

"Because it was your sweat-equity that made it not very bad."

I think you've got me confused with the cops. I did nothing to improve Jersey City or Harlem, I just live here.

"...you're just not getting your ass thrown to the street because of a market fluctuation."

I think you misspelled "be forced to move to a cheaper apartment in the next 30-60 days".

"I don't get what you're saying here. Who are we taxing?"

The locals that make a place undesirable to live in. You advocate rewarding certain stationary locals who create positive externalities ("make the neighborhood worth living in"). The flip side of that is to punish negative externalities.

It's something along the lines of rewarding the creators of public art (who create positive externalities), while punishing polluters (who create negative externalities).

"Because you're a caring human being? Because those wealthy enough to enjoy a mobile lifestyle can fend for themselves?"

If subsidizing the needy is your goal, then why not target neediness directly, rather than using mobility is a (very poor) proxy?

Using mobility, you hit (non-wealthy) guys like me. I moved once to be close to my job (underpaid postdoc), once to be close to my live-in girlfriend's job, and again last month because she became my ex-girlfriend. Stuff like that is uncorrelated to wealth.

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#103

Post by loumf » Wed, Dec 31, 2008, 3:39 AM UTC

mmmurf wrote: post #75

davidw wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's always going to be a cutoff point, though, where people are unprofitable. Introducing some market oriented reforms might improve things, but you simply can't get around the fact that in a purely profit-oriented system, some people are not worth the money it would cost to save their lives or reduce their suffering. There are plenty of products where the market drives prices down, but doesn't make them free or…

True. I don't think anyone would object to helping the 1% of people who are actually in that category. The problem is that interest groups hijack the programs in order to win handouts for those who don't really need the programs.

Where does this 1% come from? As a back of the envelope calculation, I would guess that almost all senior citizens are unprofitable to insure -- that's way more than 1%. Even if I'm off by a lot, it's still way more than 1% -- and I haven't addressed the rest of the population.

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#104

Post by r7000 » Wed, Dec 31, 2008, 3:45 AM UTC

fallentimes wrote: post #92

r7000 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ticketing has been a weird market. There is a strong expectation among consumers that there is a 'fixed price' (face value) and that anything else is 'unfair'. Demand is constrained completely by a venue's capacity leading to all the obvious problems for over-subscribed events.

We deal with this every day. An interesting trend is that we've seen more people buying from ticketmaster (since events are selling out & season ticket sales are down) even when tickets on the secondary market are cheaper and "below face". It's ridiculous how obsessed people are with face value even when it's arbitrary and doesn't really mean anything; it gives them a sense of fairness. Also, venues have incentive to…

That is incredible. I knew the feeling was strong but to actually influence buyers to pay face value over a discount wasn't what I expected. I guess I was more cynical but the instinct is very strong. It is probably a remnant from when there was no other reasonable option. Why ticket reselling became so vilified I always put down to fan enthusiasm (and therefore irrationality).

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#105

Post by dgordon » Wed, Dec 31, 2008, 4:29 AM UTC

Prrometheus wrote: post #49

davidw wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. It would be fun to have numbers for the past, too, to see how much 'bouncing around' there was, and what it could be correlated with.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/html/pa580/pa580index.html page 13 Keep in mind that these are "soft libertarians", people that consider themselves economically conservative and socially liberal, but don't necessarily go around trolling message boards with anarchist philosophy. 2004 seemed to be unusually bad for the republican percentage of the libertarian vote. The only worse year was 1992, when Ross Perot, Clinton, a…

I don't see that "libertarian" entails "anarchist" or even "trolling message boards."

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#106

Post by calambrac » Wed, Dec 31, 2008, 4:32 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #102

calambrac wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So basically, you believe landlords/builders are 1) greedy when it comes to raising rents 2) not greedy when it comes to building more houses." Yes. Believe it or not, there are a ton of people who don't act exactly how economic theory says they maybe should. "And superpowerful, able to prevent any other greedy people from building housing and renting it for a profit." When you're out of new land to build on (NYC or…

"Believe it or not, there are a ton of people who don't act exactly how economic theory says they maybe should." All it takes is a few people to behave greedily. And again, how come the condo market in NYC doesn't have these problems? "Because it was your sweat-equity that made it not very bad." I think you've got me confused with the cops. I did nothing to improve Jersey City or Harlem, I just live here. "...you're…

"All it takes is a few people to behave greedily."

A few people acting greedily forces an unwilling owner to sell out? That makes no sense.

"And again, how come the condo market in NYC doesn't have these problems?"

I didn't address this before because it sounds like something you're pulling out of your ass - and you said it yourself, your building was built for condos but used for rent b/c the market for condos wasn't there. What, exactly, do you want me to argue against here?

"I think you've got me confused with the cops. I did nothing to improve Jersey City or Harlem, I just live here."

Did you mug anyone? Sell drugs? Piss on other people's porches? Litter? Pay your rent on time? Spend money in the local stores? Occasionally smile at your neighbors? Call the cops when you saw someone breaking into a car? You don't have to be a hero to make a part of town a better place.

"I think you misspelled 'be forced to move to a cheaper apartment in the next 30-60 days'."

Cute. 30-60 days, that does make things way easier. Gives people plenty of time to find a place they can afford that's really far away from their current job, so they spend less time with their family, or maybe even need to get a new one. Any local support systems? Churches that sometimes helped with groceries, trusted neighbors to help with babysitting, etc, all gone.

"The locals that make a place undesirable to live in."

Okay, you come up with a way to enforce it, I'm all for it. Rent control is easy, and it has roughly the same effect in upwardly-mobile neighborhoods.

"If subsidizing the needy is your goal, then why not target neediness directly, rather than using mobility is a (very poor) proxy?"

Subsidizing the needy isn't my goal. My goal is not kicking people out of their homes because rich people would rather have them.

"Using mobility, you hit (non-wealthy) guys like me. I moved once to be close to my job (underpaid postdoc), once to be close to my live-in girlfriend's job, and again last month because she became my ex-girlfriend. Stuff like that is uncorrelated to wealth."

So, wait, hold on: you want to kick people who are even worse off than you financially out of their homes so that you can afford a bit cheaper apartment now that your girlfriend broke up with you?

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#107

Post by jacobolus » Wed, Dec 31, 2008, 4:38 AM UTC

davidw wrote: post #13

pg wrote: post #10

Markets interpret social engineering as damage and route around it.

Many government policies could be seen as "social engineering", be they farm subsidies, tariffs on imports, spending on things like highways, subsidized communication networks like the postal system, education for people other than those born wealthy, meals for poor kids so that they have something in their stomachs at school and can actually try and think, and so on. And, yes, some of them get 'routed around'. Other…

> For an extreme example, see Cuba, where social engineering routed the market, with results that are disastrous in many ways.

Disastrous for whom? Compared to what? Cubans have a high literacy rate, high life expectancy, low numbers of extreme poor, etc. Indeed, the country has done much better than similar Caribbean/Latin American states which followed different political paths over the past few decades. The government's actions shouldn't be whitewashed, but nor should Cuba's accomplishments be dismissed with vague platitudes about the glories of the market.

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#108

Post by jmtulloss » Wed, Dec 31, 2008, 5:05 AM UTC

toby wrote: post #70

jmtulloss wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question for both of you is how did you get the rent controlled apartment? I bet it wasn't through craigslist. Everybody I know in the city who lives under rent control (which, admittedly, is not very many) found their places through friends. Not that it's a bad thing, but it supports the idea that you have to be "connected" to get a place. Maybe not a lawyer or a judge, but having been around the city helps.

It was through Craigslist... the deal is that every building in San Francisco built before a certain year (I don't remember which year) is rent controlled, so you don't really need a connection. The year cutoff is, I assume, to encourage developers to build new rental properties. There was a proposition to ban rent control in California, which failed to pass.

Interesting. I've had trouble finding a rent controlled apartment through craigslist. I'll have to look harder in the future.

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#109

Post by jmtulloss » Wed, Dec 31, 2008, 5:08 AM UTC

eyeraw wrote: post #77

jmtulloss wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their defense of the tobacco industry has always been centered around the rights of the individual. Just because Phillip Morris pays a few dollars to keep the institute running does not mean Cato's arguments are unfounded. All think tanks have financial backing from some faction or another, and (surprise!) it's usually the people who agree with the think tank's point of view. Just because a think tank accepts money d…

"Just because Phillip Morris pays a few dollars to keep the institute running does not mean Cato's arguments are unfounded." lol "As an individual, it's up to you to research both sides and decide on which makes the more compelling case." Yup. If you don't give equal time to paid shills you're not being Fair and Balanced.

What source is not a paid shill? Everybody has to pay the bills. Sure there are organizations that don't pay or pay very little, but they don't get the best and the brightest and they can't spend money to keep their people informed.

Re: How Rent Control Drives Out Affordable Housing

#110

Post by jmtulloss » Wed, Dec 31, 2008, 5:09 AM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #84

jmtulloss wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but it's not that black and white. Insurance companies are usually the ones paying, not the individual. As such, they have a lot of control over the price (especially in the case of medicare). While it might be life or death for the individual, it's not for the insurance company.

Which is a big part of the problem, we've put an entity between doctor and patient who's motive is profit rather than helping the patient. Insurance companies figured out a long time ago that the best way to profit was to deny claims and avoid paying in any way they can. An entire sub-industry has popped up around coding claims correctly because doctors have figured out what they can and can't get paid for, the effec…

Can't argue with that.