51–60 of 1001 posts
I’m surprised to read negative opinions about rent control. The alternative to rent control is having one’s rent double next week. I’m amazed that rent control was not a thing!
The solution to the housing crises is to build more housing. This discourages building more housing.
Just curious how the success of such a measure might be evaluated? Or is this pure theatre?
"... there could be a big effect in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods like Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, where typical rents on apartments not covered by the city’s rent regulations have jumped more than 40 percent since 2016." A deceleration in rental inflation in neighborhoods such as the above? A reduction in newly homeless populations?
It's one thing to describe a proposal's political motivations, but quite another to actually declare that you might be wrong in your approach and are willing to define object criteria for success.
I wonder if they put in measures to make permitting easier for builders so we can actually get more housing built? I guess we’ll find out in some years whether rent control entices builders to build more or if it will depress the market for building (as it usually does) such that at some point we see people (families) bunking together ala Soviet housing solutions to demand.
I know people doing that in Berkeley already.
One thing I have noticed as I have become more aware is that many of our laws are aimed at trying to freeze a moment of time, often by piling on contradictory policies on top of each other. Subsidize home loans Ban new construction Ban rent increases It is no wonder why housing prices/rents continue to rise in these markets. In software engineering sometimes conclude that a rewrite is necessary. How can we completely…
Now, with AirBnb, landlords have a much more viable option. They can put the property on AirBnb and have the flexibility to charge what the market will bear.
I foresee that as a consequence of this law, there are going to be fewer rentals and more AirBnb properties in California.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Limiting rent increases to max 8% (what this bill encodes) is only going to affect maybe 1-3% of lease agreements annually. This isn't about vast controls of housing stock, it about limiting 20% rent spikes people experience.
At the cost of further disincentives to actually building more housing. What a great idea. Every field of economics agrees that rent control causes harm to the people it's supposed to help.
Perhaps an alternative real solution to the housing crises is the abolishment of professional landlords themselves. Why should we support a system where people can own many properties, each feeding them 1/2 of someone else's paycheck? Public-owned housing is the future. It works in Europe and it can work here. Treating housing as an investment vehicle is fundamentally incompatible with the ideal of housing being affo…
So how is housing going to get built? Are you suggesting that the state have a monopoly on buildings and housing? What process do we use to begin the expropriations and confiscations?
I’m surprised to read negative opinions about rent control. The alternative to rent control is having one’s rent double next week. I’m amazed that rent control was not a thing!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> generational warfare, the olds vs the millennials This is a good example of that. Rent control tends to benefit the older generation at the expense of younger people and families. It does nothing to solve the actual problem of lack of housing inventory.
millennials in CA are disproportionately renters, not home owners. This bill will provide millennials with some extra security so they know their rent won't be spiked and they'll need to move.
"Economists from both the left and the right have a well-established aversion to rent control, arguing that such policies ignore the message of rising prices, which is to build more housing. 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. And since rent controls typically have no income threshold, they have been faulted for benefiting high-income tenants."
This is what would really help with the housing problem
"State Senator Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat, offered a bill that would essentially override local zoning to allow multiple-unit housing around transit stops and in suburbs where single-family homes are considered sacrosanct. The bill was shelved in its final committee hearing this year, but Mr. Wiener has vowed to keep pushing the idea."
But the NIMBYs killed it for now https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/business/economy/californ...
> This bill will provide millennials with some extra security so they know their rent won't be spiked and they'll need to move.
I'm not sure that's how rent control works. Unless I missed something, your rent is only capped if you don't move.