The landlord had told them he wanted to raise the rent to $3,500 and when they complained he decided to raise it to $9,500.

“We know that our building is not rent controlled and this was something we were always worried about happening and there is no way we can afford $9,500 per month," Yumna Farooq said.

  • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    224
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    It shows that “no rent control” basically means “your landlord can throw you out at any time without notice” by raising rent to a ludicrous amount. It completely undermines all other tenant protections. Even conservatives should be supporting at least modest rent controls to prevent cases like this.

    • extant@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      82
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      Most conservatives are middle class small business owners and landlords, this is why they are always supportive of “small government” it’s just a dog whistle for unregulated market.

      • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        16
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I saw a documentary that spoke to some Twump (sic) supporters who lived in a shithole building that they didn’t realize was owned by the Kushners. I can’t recall anything else about it that might help identify it.

      • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        They’re not generally cartoonish evil, I’m sure they agree that some tenant protections against sudden eviction are a good thing, and allowing unlimited rent hikes completely obliterates all that.

        • PaganDude@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          40
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          They’re not generally cartoonish evil

          You really need to look at how they’re talking on landlord forums and such, the way they speak about tenants. Reality will remove this naive idea from your mind.

            • Rambi@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              False dicotomy. People talk shit about landlords because of how they’re treated by them. Landlords talk shit about tenants because they’re pieces of shit which is the same reason they treat tenants like shit.

        • extant@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          18
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          From my experience most people don’t care until they’re inconvenienced in some way, so they won’t have an opinion on it so they wait until someone they rely on and trust to tell them how they should feel. I think we all know which entertainment network is going to tell them all about why rent control is ruining Canada/America.

        • creamed_eels@toast.ooo
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          I read a study that showed they’d rather hurt themselves than help others, even if helping others helped themselves as well, directly or indirectly. It tracks, frankly

      • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        this is why they are always supportive of “small government” it’s just a dog whistle for unregulated market.

        A “dog whistle” is something disguising the true message, while there’s no attempt to hide it here.

        (I am in support of an unregulated market, but also of trade unions and consumer unions and anarcho-syndicalism, which are natural parts of it)

      • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I think last year’s inflation spike demonstrates that “2.5% per year regardless of your carrying costs or maintenance costs changing due to interest rates and inflation” is not modest. A reasonable rent control policy would let landlords gradually adapt to market realities without giving them the power to gouge or de-facto evict tenants with sudden rent spikes.

    • mindcruzer@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      30
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Yes, rent control, our panacea.

      Negative Effects on Supply: Rent control can potentially lead to housing shortages over the long term. When landlords are unable to raise rents to cover maintenance and operating costs or to generate a reasonable return on their investment, they may have less incentive to maintain or invest in their properties. This can lead to a deterioration in the quality of rental housing and a reduction in the overall supply of rental units. In some cases, landlords may convert rental properties into other uses, such as condominiums or commercial spaces, further reducing the supply of rental housing.

      Inefficiencies and Reduced Mobility: Rent control can lead to inefficiencies in the housing market. Tenants in rent-controlled units may have less incentive to move, even if their housing needs change, because they want to keep their low rents. This reduced mobility can make it harder for new renters to find suitable housing.

      Selective Impact: Rent control often applies to older buildings or units built before a certain date. This can create disparities in rent levels between newer and older housing stock, potentially discouraging the construction of new rental units and leading to further imbalances in the housing market.

      A short term band-aid that causes long term problems. Government price controls are a tale as old as time.

      • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        Jesus, I’m getting it from both ends here, somebody else is dumping on me for suggesting that a rent-control system that’s a few points above inflation so that landlords could adapt to the market without abruptly bankrupting their tenants was somehow a reasonable compromise.

        I’m not arguing for extreme rent-control policies, just that no rent control is bad because it lets landlords write their own eviction laws.

        Peg it at like 2.5% or 5% per year above inflation and you can’t use it as a sudden backdoor eviction but you also let landlords adapt to market reality over time.

        Capping rents might be stupid for all the reasons economists say, but putting a damper on sudden price shifts is just being humane.

        • SinAdjetivos@beehaw.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          The “humane” thing would be to make any and all rent seeking behavior very explicitly illegal, but that’s unlikely to happen.

          • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            So wait where do college students live in your world?

      • Brahm1nmam@lemmy.sdf.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        So the first point is simply false, the second point is symptomatic of the third point which is simply an example of a poor policy.

        Also the second half of the third point is completely fucked off. If new construction were exempt from rent control then your ROI would be better on building units than buying units.

      • EnterOne@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        7
        ·
        1 year ago

        Before I took economics in college I would have downvoted you. Price ceilings don’t solve the problem.

        • Rocket@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Before I took economics in college I would have downvoted you.

          Now that you have studied economics, what do you think he got wrong that keeps you from pressing the “This is factual” button now?

        • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          It’s funny, somehow I managed to understand this before any college. Because supply and demand are supposedly quite intuitive.

          • Duxon@feddit.de
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Sure, but it’s irrelevant. There’s no economical rigor behind those statements. They could be true, they could be hallucinated.

            • mindcruzer@lemmy.ca
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              I didn’t just type it into ChatGPT and copy/paste whatever it wrote without looking it over lol

      • ClumZy@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        We have rent control in Paris, France. Appartments are still expensive, but I pay 1600 euros per month for 60sqm in the center of one of the liveliest cities in the world.

        Rent control WORKS.

        • mindcruzer@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          It’s inevitable that any type of price control will lead to supply/demand issues. That’s great it worked out for you but it is well documented that rent control harms rental markets long term. Anyone who disagrees is in denial.