Rent Control: More Politics, Less Housing

We’ve completed an analysis of rent control and found that the policy is more about politics and power than it is about housing. For anyone that has been paying attention over the last several years, even supporters of rent control, this conclusion probably isn’t surprising. What rent control promises is concentration of pricing in the hands of government planners. What’s ironic about this is that most of the people angry at City Hall and clamoring for rent control don’t trust City Hall on policing, homeless policy, or the way it sets priorities. Councilmember Kshama Sawant who is running for re-election is fond of saying that City Hall is under the control of the “corporations.” How odd that she’d want to hand over the decision about how much you should pay for a one bedroom apartment to that same group of people.

Our analysis offers a history of price controls and rent control, some of the problems that have been identified over the years (4000!) with both, takes a look at empirical studies about rent control, and then offers some solutions that would actually help housing problems rather than make them worse. Please take a look. You can download the PDF of the analysis or read it below.