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contrary-contrarian t1_iuhwmyl wrote

Rent control anyone?

Let's make legislators who own rental properties abstain from the vote.

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GaleTheThird t1_iuicqwh wrote

> Rent control anyone?

Not a good policy, especially in the long run

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contrary-contrarian t1_iuiwabg wrote

Says who? Greedy landlords?

Cap rent increases to 3% annually for existing tenants.

Cap rent markup between tenants to 10%.

Enjoy a more stable rental market.

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Kiernanstrat t1_iuiyhb8 wrote

Except that you've created a situation where it is financially advantageous to get rid of current tenants. Every single lease would be for 1 year only. It would produce the opposite of stability.

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contrary-contrarian t1_iuizu7p wrote

How is that any different then now...?

This provides some limit vs. none.

It is advantageous to keep tenants because tenant turnover = admin costs.

Turning over a tenant every year is a massive pain in the butt.

I would also support banning no-cause evictions to stop what you're saying from happening (with carveouts for selling the property/owner occupancy).

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Kiernanstrat t1_iuj5a2m wrote

It wouldn't be an eviction because the lease would clearly state it is for 1 year and 1 year only. Turning over a unit would involve maybe a day of work getting a listing posted and scheduling showings then a few hours of showings. There would be no issue getting a new tenant in the current market and the situation isn't changing anytime soon. The increase in rental fees would cover these costs easily and most large landlords use a property manager anyway so little headache on their part to do that.

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thisoneisnotasbad t1_iuj8jdp wrote

Yup, spread out a month of operation costs across 12 months of rent and you don’t lose anything.

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thisoneisnotasbad t1_iuj15ru wrote

This is what Burlington’s just cause eviction will lead to. If you need a lawyer to change tenants after a year, all tenants will get a year

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tom_echo t1_iuj0za7 wrote

Certain rent control measures can/could work but it’s difficult to tune things properly.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-does-economic-evidence-tell-us-about-the-effects-of-rent-control/

If you cap increases then the rent always increases by that much every single year. 3% is probably very fair for a small rent increase every year.

If the profit isn’t there then no renovations will happen. Housing will become dated and the minimum maintenance to keep it up to code will be performed (which is what happens anyway in some cases).

Once in a home it’s difficult for tenants to leave because their rent is on the low end but newer leases are on the highest end of the spectrum. The landlord will try as much as possible to average it out so they receive the same (or more) income than they did before rent control.

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GaleTheThird t1_iuj1502 wrote

All rent control is going to do is make new construction of apartments less likely, which is the opposite of what you want when you're already incredibly supply constrained. You also have people incentivized to never leave their apartment (especially after being there a while), so anyone new to the area gets even more screwed.

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the_ocean t1_iuiz2nl wrote

Rent control is bad for young people because it creates a huge incentive for older renters to hang onto an apartment as long as possible. Unless we are also going to build a huge amount of new rental units rent control is only going to exacerbate the tight rental market problem.

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contrary-contrarian t1_iuj042b wrote

This is a classic economists myth that simply is not true.

Allowing landlords to raise rent unchecked creates an unstable market that fucks over young people who can't afford to live anywhere near where they work.

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the_ocean t1_iuj0lrm wrote

I’d love to see studies showing it isn’t true - if you have links I’m happy to be wrong. My anecdotal lived experience from rent controlled markets was that units rarely hit the market, and instead were often traded secretly so landlords wouldn’t know there was a new tenant. When they did hit the market they were priced outrageously because the owners were losing money on existing tenants and trying to make it up on newcomers. But again, that’s anecdote not data. I welcome new information that would improve my understanding.

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Shadowheals t1_iuj59b4 wrote

I don’t know anything about rent control or about housing economics in general. I’ve always rented and have never had too much of an issue finding something.

But, as I’ve grown older I’m becoming less and less in favor of how insanely capitalist America and Americans have become. Would controlling rent based on housing value or some other means work?

If you’re renting out an apartment building worth 500,000 and you have 5 units, so roughly 100,000 a unit, rent can only be so and so much. Enough for the landlord to make some money and to do maintenance but not screw renters as well. I’m sure this isn’t a great idea for the “American dream” type of people who feel they can charge or do whatever they want since this is America, but the American dream certainly feels like it turned into a myth years ago.

Again I’m ignorant on this subject, and maybe that’s the way rent controlled suppose to work, but I am curious.

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the_ocean t1_iujadbk wrote

That sounds like a plan that’d work well in a country less fanatically devoted to unchecked capitalism, but would be a hard sell in the US.

There are some types of housing where the state caps profitability to the owner, but it’s almost universally in cases where the owner can’t make more than some fixed profit on sale, not on rent. This is how a lot of grants to assist low-income house purchasers work.

It’s also reasonable to think that doing so would reduce many potential builders’ interest in making more housing. Which is maybe a sign that we should have more “social housing” built by the state or nonprofit groups. But, again, lots of Americans think that’s communism and, well, they may not know what communism is but they sure don’t like it.

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contrary-contrarian t1_iuj73ip wrote

Your experience has been with rent control on specific properties. This creates scarcity of those properties and thus the issues you've laid out. I'm proposing milder rent control for all rental properties vs. much more strict rent control for only a select few.

The idea is to curb the massive money grabs like we're seeing right now with landlords raising rent at unprecedented levels just because they can, not because they need to.

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the_ocean t1_iuj9guo wrote

That’s fair - i actually think your idea of a cap on rental increases whether renewal or new is an interesting idea that might avoid the pitfalls of classic rent control. I agree with you that the cost of acquiring new tenants probably means that landlords would have minimal incentive to churn.

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