Give me a break. Until suppression of building new units stops (by poor, helpless owners), this is the only recourse. I agree wholeheartedly that the real solution is to build more homes but that doesn't appear to be in the cards. So the idea that rent control doesn't actually help lower income people is _completely_ nuts. I know of many people off the top of my head that no-way would still be living in San Francisco if there weren't rent control (including my elderly aunt and uncle).

> Until suppression of building new units stops (by poor, helpless owners), this is the only recourse.

In the spirit of furious agreement, yes the best option would obviously be not to suppress construction.

Just because one interest group wants stupid things to happen that benefit them in the short term doesn't make it a good idea to go open season on stupid things. The goal should always be to improve the state of affairs; not to spread the pain around.

Everyone bar no-one needs institutions stuffed with people who make sensible long-term decisions. The best way to get that is to always pressure them in that direction. Bending to political expedience encourages people who make bad decisions; not a good strategy.

If there weren't rent control, market rents would certainly be much lower, so it's really hard to say whether your aunt and uncle could afford it or not. Surely you weren't basing your statement on the current market rent in their neighborhood? On what basis are you making that claim?

> If there weren't rent control, market rents would certainly be much lower

source?

Here's the latest: "... while rent control prevents displacement of incumbent renters in the short run, the lost rental housing supply likely drove up market rents in the long run, ultimately undermining the goals of the law." https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/DMQ.pdf

Previously: "Rent control policies generally lead to higher rents in the uncontrolled market, with rents some-times substantially higher than would be expected without rent control (i.e., between 10 to 25 percent higher). Over time, if rent control does not apply to new construction, there is some evidence that the impact on uncontrolled rents diminishes." https://www.nmhc.org/globalassets/knowledge-library/rent-con...

It also follows from supply and demand. Owners are more likely to sell rather than rent out their places, and tenants are more likely to stay in their below-market rent units, both of which reduces supply for new (i.e. market-rate) tenants.

> I know of many people...

Visible benefits; invisible costs. Great politics.

Who you don't see are the people outside looking in that want an apartment but can't find one, or can't afford one, or need to sign a new lease at a very high rent.

Rent control doesn't unequivocally help current renters. It also keeps them stuck in one place for a long time, even when it's not a great fit for them.

And pretty much every economist says rent control raises rents and lowers quality overall, hurting those trying to move in.

Rent control is another form of pulling up the bridge behind you.

Except renters aren't accumulators in anything like the same way as investors and don't tend to be the ones agitating against development because they're not invested the property and have no incentive to drive it up by limiting housing stock. Guilting the least financially secure for having any degree of predictability and stability is an emotionally manipulative rather than a substantive argument.

> manipulating prices which has bad side effects for many even if its good for a few.

There are way more renters than owners. Prices have been going up more than 5%. Owners are most definitely not the "less-powerful" here.

So in reality the gov't might be artificially surpressing supply (though it's mostly due to owner pushback), but the "manipulating prices" (trying to keep rent growth from getting out of control) is helping less-powerful.

I get the point about how this can default owners to just increase prices. Well they were going to be doing that anyways! Especially with surpressed supply!

Arguing that "overall price increases with this law" > "overall prices increase without this law" is non-intuitive and probably just not true.

(thought experiment: if raising 5% every year with the law made sense, why would it not make sense to raise it 5% every year without the law? This law doesn't prevent other owners from offering _lower_ rents, if the market calls for it)

> thought experiment: if raising 5% every year with the law made sense, why would it not make sense to raise it 5% every year without the law?

If you don't raise it now then you can no longer do it later in the event that taxes or mortgage interest rates or some other cost increases. That creates a major risk for the landlord, which most of them would prefer to mitigate by raising rents even if it means apartments going vacant longer. And when they're all similarly situated, they all do the same thing, which means the tenants can't avoid the rent increases by moving to another apartment, which allows for more of the landlords to get in on the rent increase without incurring vacancies.

Having an actual number on the books shared by all creates an expectation. It's an anchor. If everyone agrees a 5% increase is reasonable, then everyone will do it. Now you don't need a reason, you're just keeping up with the market.

Think of it as landlords having to share some of their Prop 13 savings with tenants. Now both owners and renters can both enjoy the protection of not being forced from their homes due to an increase in cost.