[paulddraper]

I refer you to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39655144

> there's a queue for rentals, so you register that you want to rent in Stockholm, and then you get put on a list, and then wait two years for it to be your turn

Price capping any good -- housing, fuel, food -- by definition produces a shortage.

A shortage is when there is more demand than supply at the market price.

And artificially lowering the market price increases the amount demanded and reduces the amount supplied.

[tonoto]

I believe that the queue hasn't been as short as "two years" in a couple of decades.

[owisd]

It only creates a shortage in a world where you have the x-shaped supply and demand curve from econ 101, which doesn’t apply here because the shortage already exists because of zoning/planning laws limiting the construction of new housing. If there wasn’t an existing shortage then no-one would be calling for rent controls. Rent controls just change who the winners and losers are as a result of a given shortage, in Stockholm’s case, existing residents are the winners and new residents are the losers. Existing residents who benefit get to vote to maintain the status quo in municipal elections whereas the people that can’t move there because of rent controls don’t, hence the system is self-sustaining.

[Jensson]

> If there wasn’t an existing shortage then no-one would be calling for rent controls

False, rent controls isn't about shortage it is about land lords raising rents for people who already live there and since it is so much work to move people will stay and pay overpriced rent.

Then that rent control easily leads to the shortage and extremely high prices for new entrants, but that was never the original goal.