[Nursie]

Why would they sit on them?

Surely they are more likely to sell if they can never be leased profitably? This would put that capital to better use.

Your assumption there is also that the class of ‘renters’ is homogenous and wants to rent. In some cities there is a significant class of people who are forced into continuing with renting because of supply constraints on homes for sale, which are exacerbated by landlords with superior access to leverage buying up stock and pushing up prices. In this situation the landlords actually create their own market.

A comparative shortage of rental properties and of landlords could be very desirable, as it implies more owner-occupiers.

It also implies more capital flowing out of real-estate and into productive industry, which one would assume is also desirable for a thriving economy.

[tjwebbnorfolk]

You don't need to ask this question when you can readily observe a century of economic data on rent control. People do all kinds of acrobatics to avoid giving up their rent controlled apartments.

Why wouldn't they? They are locked in at a price that was frozen in time and can't increase. And there is a thriving black market for re-leased rent-controlled apartments. (black markets always occur when supply is artificially restricted).

You're posing a hypothetical that only happens in an alternate universe where the foundational ideas of economics and human behavior don't apply.

> A comparative shortage of rental properties and of landlords *could be very desirable*, as it implies more owner-occupiers.

Ok so 2/3rds of the way through your case you've already moved the goalposts. Here's a reality check for you: a dwelling is a dwelling, whether it is rented or owned. Rent control always and everywhere produces a shortage of dwellings. This hurts everyone.

Lower rent cannot be legislated any more than waterfront mansions for everyone can be legislated. It would be wonderful, if true. But it is not.

[Nursie]

> People do all kinds of acrobatics to avoid giving up their rent controlled apartments.

Ah, it appears I read your up-thread comment inside-out. I thought you were saying landlords would sit on the properties empty. Rather the point you were making is that existing tenants won't give them up.

My fault, but you can see how that interpretation is weird I hope.

> Ok so 2/3rds of the way through your case you've already moved the goalposts.

No goalposts have been moved, your assertion was that renters lose out because there won't be many properties for rent, as they will be occupied by 'legacy' tenants.

My assertion doesn't conflict that specifically - if you create market conditions that are less profitable for landlords you therefore have fewer of them using their greater access to debt to outcompete would-be owner-occupiers. As a result the population of renters drops as they become owners. So pressure comes out of the sector. In some markets demand for homes is already so far above production capacity and available land that there is no conceivable impact of removing 'investors' on the production rate of new dwellings.

Perhaps rent-control is a poor mechanism to achieve this. Other mechanisms exist.

[Plasmoid]

What happens is that economics shift from a renewable model to an extractive model.

Farms are renewable so farmers maintain them over centuries. Mines are extractive so they get pumped and dumped.

What landlords do in these situations is try to extract as much money as possible before the enterprise collapses, either literally or figuratively. New housing doesn't come online quickly so both quality and quantity fall.

[Nursie]

Well, this is a reason that we have standards and laws about rentable properties.

Landlords who can’t operate within the imposed constraints, those for instance who have debts they used to get into the game in the first place, might simply be forced to leave the business.

In many markets this is actively desirable.