> We find that landlords actively respond to the imposition of rent control by converting their properties to condos and TICs or by redeveloping the building in such as a way as to exempt it from the regulations. In sum, we find that impacted landlords reduced the supply the available rental housing by 15%. Consistent with this evidence, we find that there was a 20% decline in the number of renters living in impacted buildings, relative to 1990-1994 levels, and a 30% decline in the number of renters living in units protected by rent control.

> These results highlight that forcing landlords to provided insurance against rent increases leads to large losses to tenants

—The Effects of Rent Control Expansion on Tenants, Landlords, and Inequality: Evidence from San Francisco[1]

The study largely fins that, in addition to rent control causing the available supply to decrease, and tenant mobility/freedom to decrease, it largely harms new renters, and results in a wealth transfer to existing renters.

It does not solve the problem, and it does not on the whole benefit society.

[1]: https://www.nber.org/papers/w24181.pdf

Doesn't it seem to you that the problem is those regulations that can allow the exemptions rather than rent control?

I mean, if it wasn't possible to exempt a building from the regulations, there wouldn't be an issue with rent control.

When you don't allow exemptions from rent control, you get something like the Bronx in the 1970s, where landlords set fire to their own buildings to collect insurance money rather than rent them out. [1] There's always an exemption - if you don't provide a legal one, people will find an undetectable illegal one.

[1] https://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100610/BLOGS01/30610...

The article you posted does not say anything about fire (I searched for the word 'fire').

Even in that case though, what was the percentage of buildings burnt because of rent controls? if it was extremely low (as in less then 0.01%), then there is no real problem.

Search for "arson" instead.

There was a photo-essay of the devastation (seriously, it looked like a war zone) posted on HN about a month ago. I can't find the link now, but if you Google "pictures of 1970s Bronx", the Image Search links give you a sense.

Eh, berlin is a city with the housing capacity in multiples of its population. You dont need to put any ceiling on rents to have them down.