[spoonie]

Yup it’s a combination of protecting those who are less powerful and I would argue a way to avoid perverse incentives. If a landlord can arbitrarily raise rent, they have no incentive to perform ongoing (inexpensive maintenance). They can wait until the problems become critical and much more expensive and then pass those costs onto the tenant. With rent control the landlord knows they have to control costs and has more incentive to perform the cheaper preventative maintenance.

[deburo]

It's a nice theory, but also a very well tested one. Just read an article on bloomberg about the policy being a wash in San Francisco, with some concerns that it may have had some other effects they weren't able to measure.

It's akin to the minimum wage; why are people so bent on capping prices? Why not work on the underlying problems instead, ie what's causing those prices?