Two sisters were shocked when a Toronto landlord raised their rent by $7,000 per month.

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.

  • mindcruzer@lemmy.caEnglish
    1230·
    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.caEnglish
      123·
      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
        21·
        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.caEnglish
          11·
          1 year ago

          So wait where do college students live in your world?

    • Brahm1nmam@lemmy.sdf.org
      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
      97·
      1 year ago

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

      • Rocket@lemmy.ca
        52·
        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
        14·
        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
          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.caEnglish
            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
      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.caEnglish
        01·
        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.