Br eit bart com

Vice Pres ident Kamala Harris speaks at Howard University in Washington, March 30, 2022. (A

Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), the Heritage Foundation, and more than 30 conservative groups on Tuesday announced that they oppose Vice Presi dent Kamala Harris’s rent price control proposal, Bre itba rt News has learned exclusively.

Harris in mid-August copied President Joe Bi den’s rent price control proposal to cap rent hikes to five percent nationwide over the next two years for all landlords who own more than 50 units.

The conservatives told congressional lawmakers and state attorneys general, in a letter obtained by Bre itb art News, that the rent control proposal would do much more harm than good, wiping out many cities’ supplies of affordable rental housing.

The coalition wrote, “Even the soci alist Swedish economist Ass ar Lin dbeck once said, ‘In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city — except for bombing.’”

Nationwide rent control and further restrictions on housing providers will cause a sharp decrease in new housing, affordable rentals being converted to AirBnBs/sold as condos, millions of higher-risk tenants being refused any housing (likely worsening the problem of homelessness in cities), and overall rent rate increases.

An NBER study revealed that the 1994 rent-control expansion in San Francisco led to landlords converting their properties to condos or tenancies in common. Instead of encouraging affordable housing, the government incentivized converting away from it.

This study also found that, because of rent control, there was a city-wide rent price increase of 5.1 percent. Because of existing tenants’ depressed rents, many stay in apartments for longer than they otherwise would. This reduces the supply of rent-controlled properties for potential tenants, thus increasing the prices of other, non-controlled properties. [Emphasis added]

“In Cambridge, Mass., where rent control was abolished, economists found that direct dollar investments in housing units doubled over just a few years,” the conservative leaders added.

They cited another study which found that when the “number of rent-controlled units double in an urban area, there is a 16.2 percent increase in severely inadequate housing units and a 14.7 percent increase in moderately inadequate housing.”

As Bre itb art News’s John Carney and Alex Marlow in July wrote in the Bre itb art Business Digest, this sort of rent price control proposal is not meant to serve as a serious call for Congress to enact, instead, it is merely an attempt to buy votes:

Fortunately, this proposal is unlikely to become law. Tax depreciation schedules are fixed by statute, meaning Congress must pass Bi den’s national rent-control plan.

Of course, it’s not really intended to become law. It’s another cynical attempt by the Bid en administration to buy votes from renters who feel burdened by housing inflation caused by Bid en’s policies. The administration lacks a serious policy-making apparatus, relying instead on political schemes dressed up as public policies.

“Nationwide rent control and price controls (like banning pricing algorithms) will further inflate housing costs,” the conservatives concluded in their letter to congressional lawmakers and state attorneys general. “Despite the mountain of evidence against the use of price controls, politicians cannot resist telling voters that they can simply lower prices without any consequence. We urge lawmakers and state attorneys general to oppose and fight these dangerous efforts in the housing industry.”

Politicians know rent controls don't work in the long term, but they think in terms of staying in office for the next 2 to 4 years and if the SHTF sooner than expected they blame the other side for all the long-term bad while taking credit for all the short-term good.

This is how you buy votes using other peoples' money: in this case, the rent due to landlords who suffer under rent control. What can I say? Don't like rent control? Get out of those foolish cities and states that implement it. Staying = acceptance.

Talk about ignoring the science. Every formal study ever done on rent control has lead to the exact same conclusion, it makes things worse. Yet the media and the left side politicians still tout it as a good thing.

A good book on this phenomenon is "Democracy: The God That Failed" by Professor Herman Hoppe. In a nutshell, democracy is 18 percent of homeowners/LLs vs 80 percent of tenants voting on whether or not to pay rent. "Residents in Maine have the highest rate of home ownership at 32.71%, while California is on the opposite end of the spectrum at only 18.35%." Hoppe's solution: LLs are better off with a government controlled by a Prince or Monarch who has no incentive to buy votes with other people's property.

I thought home ownership was much higher. Around two thirds?

Price controls DO work. You just don't know what the goal is. The politicians can brag about lowering your rent and then blame the landlord when the building deteriorates. And by creating a housing shortage, the politicians can keep repeating how big a problem it is.

plenty, for that answer you would need the whole picture regarding the changes in the laws.

Probably the best advice my father ever gave me was to watch who was making the laws. Look into them, their background, their holdings and their friends.