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California Approves Statewide Rent Control

nytimes.com

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Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#191

Post by bdcravens »

baby wrote: post #118
pitaj wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prices should increase in the case of increased demand. Prices must increase in that case if you want the supply to increase, which is the only way to actually meet demand. It's how the market works ffs.

I guess it shows how out of touch you guys are. When I moved here EVERYONE told me to find a rent controlled place. After hearing some horror stories I think you would be crazy to live in a non-rent controlled place. Heck, I’ve never heard of non-rent control before moving to the US. No surprise there’s so many homeless people. PS: look at what your free market did to the US healthcare.

> No surprise there’s so many homeless people.

Pretty sure rent controls would have no effect on the amount of substance abuse and mental illness that plagues so many homeless.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#192

Post by michaelkeenan »

cryptoz wrote: post #101
quixoticelixer- wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rent control decreases the supply of housing

This phrase is repeated frequently throughout these comments but never with an explanation. I think the opposite of that phrase is true; that in these circumstances, rent control is part of what will enable an increase in the supply of housing. The inequality gap must be lessened for there to be sustainable growth in the housing construction market; this rent control is part of that.

The NYT article we're all commenting on explains: "Studies in San Francisco and elsewhere show that price caps often prompt landlords to abandon the rental business by converting their units to owner-occupied homes."

There's a literature on this; there's no need to speculate.

Another thing worth checking is the IGM Economic Experts Panel, which covered rent control in 2012: http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/rent-control

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#193

Post by cybersnowflake »

raldi wrote: post #141
bubmiw wrote: post #13

Vote pro housing centrist fiscally right republicans , we need a more diverse ca congress

"As in previous polling, the law [to dramatically increase the housing supply] is more popular with Democrats than with Republicans, with 76 and 55 percent support respectively." https://sf.curbed.com/2019/5/17/18629809/sb-50-housing-trans...

Yeah, thats why we're seeing oodles of houses now that the Democrats practically control all of california. Are you trying to argue that the current one party rule is a good thing?

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#194

Post by justinhj »

refurb wrote: post #186
bhauer wrote: post #21

I am a landlord in Oregon, but not California. The curious, although ultimately predictable, outcome of the new rent control measure in Oregon is that while I have historically had an arrangement with my property management to be restrained in annual rent increases, they are now advising a default annual increase of the maximum allowed (7 percent before inflation). This is because larger adjustments cannot be made if…

It also results in a lot of empty units. I was talking with a real estate agent in SF and he said it’s not unusual for landlords looking to sell their rent controlled building to just let units sit empty. Why? Because it can increase the value of the building by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Losing out on $24k worth of rent each year is easy if you know it comes with an extra $300k in your pocket when you sell.

Which is why vacant property tax makes sense for popular areas

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#195

Post by halflings »

john_moscow wrote: post #169
bhauer wrote: post #21

I am a landlord in Oregon, but not California. The curious, although ultimately predictable, outcome of the new rent control measure in Oregon is that while I have historically had an arrangement with my property management to be restrained in annual rent increases, they are now advising a default annual increase of the maximum allowed (7 percent before inflation). This is because larger adjustments cannot be made if…

>they are now advising a default annual increase of the maximum allowed (7 percent before inflation) Is the property management company collecting an extra commission each time a new tenant moves in? Because all this strategy is going to do is let tenants quit once the rent goes considerably above the market rate. A much wiser strategy, IMO, would be to watch the market rates and keep the existing tenants' rate const…

Isn't OP saying they are doing this because of rent control? (e.g not being able to change rent selectively, only able to constantly increase rent?)

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#196

Post by bdcravens »

baby wrote: post #158
joshfraser wrote: post #117

When you mess with supply and demand there are always unintended consequences. I'm currently a beneficiary of rent control and am lucky to be paying below-market rate for my apartment. It would be nice to move to another neighborhood, but it would be dumb for me to give up the savings. My neighbor pays 1/10th of what I pay for the same size apartment. Neither of us are leaving anytime soon. This is why there's no liq…

Same. I’m in a rent control place and I would never ever make the mistake of moving in a place that can arbitrarily increase its rent. I fee bad for people who didn’t have a choice and will probably have to move out at some point because of that :/

Do you feel trapped at all? My understanding is that rent control only affects increases. So if the area you live in becomes less desirable, you're likely to face a choice of "starting over" and paying market rate, or sticking with your current living arrangement due to not wanting to lose that rate.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#198

Post by 52-6F-62 »

pitaj wrote: post #172
52-6F-62 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a vacuum, yes. Just as much as on paper 0.1+0.2=0.3 but in most floating point implementations it doesn’t. In application Toronto has seen the opposite effect to what you describe. We hear this argument over and over as we just had our rent control stripped, but it’s counter to the experience. Here’s one write-up: https://urbantoronto.ca/news/2018/11/people-why-universal-re...

Your article says this: > So far, empirical evidence shows that rent control has not crippled the purpose-built rental market. But the economic concensus is exactly the opposite. https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2015/08/30/... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/12/business/economy/rent-con... https://www.businessinsider.com/does-rent-control-work-no-it... https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-0…

The article continues beyond that line.

They outline, with numbers, the practical effects of rent control in the sample size of metro Toronto.

I’m not an economist but I didn’t think consensus was a valid benchmark against empirical data.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#199

Post by statusquoantefa »

baby wrote: post #145
forrestthewoods wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s here to ensure people can still find affordable places to live. Rent control does the opposite. It radically reduces choices and increase on price on people looking for a place to live. Rent control chooses a small handful of existing renters to be winners. And it makes everyone else a loser. Except it's also shitty renters, because it traps them in place. Sure it gives them a home somewhere. But it denies the…

That’s FUD. It works great in other countries and if strict can give equal chances to tenants no matter your background.

The US economy is the driver of the world economy, and has been for quite some time and it's why we see so much innovation of entire new sectors in the US. (Yes, you can see sustained higher growth for a time in some other places, like China, because starting from a lower level allows for piggybacking in the same way the US economy grew with regard to Europe in the 19th century.)

The reason mature European economies do not come close to entrepreneurship and the rate of innovation in the US economy is because widespread govt regulation and taxes across the board stifles economic options for investors.

It is simply not true that housing and employment laws in other places "works great", it's a tradeoff, and if the US follows that path the world will become a less good place for everybody because Europe and Asia will no longer have an innovative capitalist petri dish to follow and leverage from.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#200

Post by c3534l »

What hope do we have for self governance when the poster child of bad economic regulations, universally derided for having the opposite effect for which it intends, can still be implemented? Are governments incapable of learning? Are we doomed never to make any political progress on policies that are counter-intuitive, even when there is overwhelming agreement and empirical evidence of its harm? This makes me cynical of climate change. Even if we do achieve a carbon-neutral lifestyle, who's to say the next generation of politicians won't make the same arguments being made today against stopping climate change?
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