not the same - a mortgage require a deposit. Renting will be cheaper, because a deposit is basically a capital cost (that people comparing renting and buying don't take into account).

A common problem with rent control (can’t raise rent to match market) in cities is the landlord stops doing maintenance or starts moving in folks who are dangerous or threatening to tenants to get them to leave.

> starts moving in folks who are dangerous or threatening to tenants to get them to leave

Seems a high risk, desperate maneuver. What's the end-game for the landlord? A building full of drug dealers, in perpetuity? Keeping maintenance up to city code could be a burden, and the insurance company might start to get wise.

Usually the dangerous folks are people on the payroll, and the end game is selling the property to someone else to be turned into something higher end once the normal tenants are out.

Sometimes it’s just to have tenant churn to allow them to get higher rents. Rent control for long periods of time can cause very large disparities between current market rents and what a tenant is paying (thousands/mo). The dangerous folks aren’t usually obvious when first checking out a unit.

At least in NYC, there is a lot of reputed Mafia involvement in real estate.