[bendmorris]

>My mother-in-law is a land lord in Los Angeles ... She is a staunch opponent of rent control.

Is this supposed to be surprising...? Regardless of whether it works for tenants, obviously rent control isn't there for the landlord's benefit.

[paulgb]

Having read up on some of the building purchases in my own neighborhood (East Village of NYC), it seems that rent control is bad for honest landlords and good for the slimey ones who are willing to "encourage" people to leave. And thanks to Coase's theorem the building sales are usually in that direction.

[noobermin]

Wouldn't the fix be to stop the slimey ones from "encouraging" people to leave in the first place?

It sounds like blaming the game rather than striking out against those who abuse it.

[jules]

It's not a question of blame, it's a question of the results of a particular policy. Rent control creates an incentive for landlords to bully their tenants. You can create another government agency to police this, but in reality that is extremely difficult because you can do a lot of bad things legally, and trying to police that will have negative unintended consequences in itself. It also causes bad behavior that would be impossible or incredibly undesirable to police, such as simply neglecting the state of the housing and shared spaces. We've already learned decades ago that rent controlled housing rapidly deteriorates.

Perhaps another example: the drug war. Making marihuana illegal creates criminal activity other than just selling it. You could say "okay, so just police that", but that's not so easy in the real world, and we've seen the negative consequences of attempting it.

A lot of problems would be solved if politicians thought less about the intentions of their policies and more about the incentives those policies create. Too many policies make bad behavior rational. Even worse is that once you do that it's not just that good people start behaving badly, but also that bad actors out compete the good ones. A good policy aligns self interest with the common interest.

[noobermin]

You're going to have to help me. I don't know what you mean by "bad behavior that would be[...]undesirable to police." It seems very abstract, and because of that, is less than convincing. Please give me an explicit example of that.

For example, how does, "rent-control => neglect the state of housing" That happens already without rent-control.

[anthuswilliams]

It's true that there are many landlords who provide ill-managed, neglected housing even in areas without rent control. However, rent control exacerbates that problem, in my opinion, for two reasons:

1) It incentivizes the landlord to shorten the amount of time a particular tenant will inhabit the property, because it is only when a tenant leaves and a new one comes in that the landlord is free to jack up the rent to market rates.

2) It compels the landlord to lower his expenses in order to ensure that his investment stays profitable. Ordinarily, a landlord is constrained by a desire to keep a property that will attract and retain good tenants, but since that is no longer (as much of) a factor, he will avoid making repairs and enhancements except in emergency situations where the law requires him to.

Source: landlord (albeit one who has never worked in an area with rent control policies)

[BearGoesChirp]

Is that possible?

The good landlords aren't pulling out every technically not illegal trick to make more money because they value things more than just being in the clear legally, but they do value being in the clear legally. The slimy landlords don't care about other effects, as long as they are legally in the clear. If you increase punishment/enforcement of the laws, you will hit both the good and the slimy landlords harder, with the slimy ones still taking a lead because they don't care about factors like a good reputation or having a clean conscious (yes, I'm somewhat stereotyping the good and slimy groups).

That the slimy ones know and practice working around the law may even mean that the good landlords get hit harder from a crackdown. In some way the government can't focus on the slimy landlords because by their very being they avoid government focus more than the good landlords.

[paulgb]

Better enforcement might help, but even if everyone is acting in good faith you'd still expect to see a higher incidence of condo conversations and Tenancy in Common simply due to Coase.

[ardit33]

agreed, lived in apt in the East Village, and while my apt. was really nice, the common areas were in shambles and it looked like the managing company didn't care about its exterior either.

The reason was that almost half of the apt. in the building were rent controlled (grandfathered in).

I think a mix of limited rent control (i.e. 5 years, max) plus building more apt for people that can't afford it, is a better combo on keeping a stability and folks being able to afford and live closer to work.

The only way to build more affordable apartments, is to allow for building more market rate apartments as well. Right now this current older (baby boomer) generation is screwing hard the upcoming one.

[lern_too_spel]

I know several slumlords who have made a killing off of rent control. It rewards bad actors disproportionately more than bleeding hearts like GP's mother.

Because slumlords are better able to extract profits from rent controlled properties, they are willing to buy them for more than they are worth to bleeding hearts. All rent controlled properties will be managed by slumlords in the long run.

[kemiller]

Yes, this, exactly. And I suspect that this is partially behind its persistence in the face of evidence it doesn't work.

[theduro]

Agreed. I guess what I was getting at was, given her particularly less than favorable views on deregulation and hyper free-market views in other respects, I find her opinion on this interesting.

[bendmorris]

No offense, but I don't think it's especially surprising when people support one set of political views when it affects other people, but deviate from it when it affects their own bottom line. See for example the powerful in Silicon Valley, who are mostly "progressive" until it comes to economic issues that affect their personal finances.