Rent Control Remains the Wrong Solution to Housing Woes
Restricting the price of housing kills incentives to supply places to live.
Restricting the price of housing kills incentives to supply places to live.
Which is bad news for anyone hoping to rent a place to live.
Plus: The White House's rent controls, San Francisco's bad-to-worse turn on housing, and the latest unintended consequence of eviction moratoriums
Thomas agreed with the Court's decision to not take up two challenges to New York's rent stabilization law but said the constitutionality of rent control "is an important and pressing question."
Plus: Voters in Massachusetts reject state-mandated upzonings, Florida localities rebel against a surprisingly effective YIMBY reform, and lawsuits target missing middle housing in Virginia.
Plus: rent control behind financial problems at NYCB, public housing's corruption problem, and New York City's near-zero vacancy rate.
The new libertarian president believes in free markets and the rule of law. When people have those things, prosperity happens.
Plus: Ohio church sues the city trying to shut down its homeless services, another indigenous-owned megaproject approved in Vancouver, B.C., and a new report shows rapidly deteriorating housing affordability.
Plus: the Supreme Court weighs housing fees and homelessness, YIMBYs bet on smaller, more focused reforms, and a new paper finds legalizing more housing does in fact bring costs down.
Plus: Fort Collins tries passing zoning reform for the third time, Coastal California cracks down on Airbnbs, and state lawmakers try to unban rent control.
Plus: More local "missing middle" reforms pass in Maine and Virginia, Colorado court blesses crackdown on student housing, and Florida tries to escape its slow growth past.
Plus: the U.S. Justice Department says zoning restrictions on a church's soup kitchen are likely illegal, more cities pass middle housing reforms, and California gears up for another rent control fight.
The U.S. Supreme Court keeps putting off deciding whether to take up a challenge to New York's rent control scheme.
A new report details how the city's famed social housing system is suffering from diminishing affordability, deteriorating quality, and funding shortfalls.
Plus: Political campaigns will have to disclose if they use AI in their ads, the effort to rehabilitate rent control rumbles on, and more...
A new study from researchers at Northwestern University found that landlords were incentivized by rising rents to replace existing tenants with new market-rate-paying tenants.
Rent control is getting a rhetorical makeover from progressive policy makers.
The country's largest legacy rent-control policy is pushing building owners to the breaking point.
Today, voters will consider a citizen petition that would let landlords raise rents to market rates on vacant units.
Cities become affordable when they build a lot of housing, not when they subsidize it.
Progressives like to argue that rent control policies that exempt new construction don't impact the construction of new housing.
The new law would allow developers to build housing on commercially zoned lots provided they include affordable units.
A controversial "good cause" eviction bill that would cap rent increases could be included in a budget bill that must pass by April 1.
The allegedly smart balance "anti-rent gouging" policies have struck between supply and stability is already unraveling.
An oddball coalition of neighborhood activists and left-wing politicians have opposed plans to convert the privately owned site to housing, citing the loss of open space and impacts on gentrification.
Plus: The U.S. Supreme Court considers another internet free speech case, the Department of Transportation pushes expensive new rail regs, and more...
The city's old-school rent control scheme worsened housing quality but had no effect on housing supply. Mayor Michelle Wu's new rent control law will likely have the opposite effect.
Plus: Bill would make all social media platforms check IDs, appeals court rejects rent control challenge, and more...
The 2nd Circuit reasoned that the government hasn't necessarily taken a landlord's property when it forces him or her to operate at a loss while renting to a tenant he or she never agreed to host.
The White House's idea of using Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to adopt rent control faces numerous legal and practical hurdles.
Warren and fellow progressive Democrats have asked President Joe Biden to use the FTC, HUD, or maybe the FHFA to impose nationwide rent control.
Property owners in Kingston, New York, argue the city is vastly underestimating its vacancy rate in order to justify ruinous rent cuts.
Voters in Orange County, Florida, and Pasadena, California, will vote on ballot initiatives that cap rent increases at, or below, inflation.
The St. Paul City Council passed a series of amendments to a voter-passed rent stabilization ordinance that exempt new construction and make it easier for landlords to factor inflation into rent increases.
A new report from The Community Housing Improvement Program argues that allowable rent hikes in rent-stabilized buildings cover less than half the increase in operating costs.
Florida landlords and realtors argue that Orange County is abusing its emergency powers.
Good intentions, bad results.
Property owners can now build fourplexes in San Francisco, but only if they've owned the land for five years, place the new units under rent control, and don't try to make them much larger than a single-family home.
Two St. Paul, Minnesota, landlords claim that the city's restrictions on rent increases above 3 percent amounts to a taking of their property without due process or compensation.
The comedian largely ignores laws against new supply while arguing we should declare housing a federally funded, government-provided human right.
St. Paul has seen a 61 percent decrease in building permits after the city imposed rent control on future housing.
A new paper finds that lower income property owners are seeing the biggest falls in property values while high-income renters will get the biggest discounts on rent.
A collapse in new development activity followed St. Paul voters' approval of a strict, vaguely written rent control ordinance. City and state officials are scrambling over how best to fix the new law.
The traditional case for rent control isn't made any more convincing by a Democratic Socialists of America dance number.
Even supposedly well-designed rent control policies come at the expense of new supply while creating a class of renters opposed to necessary zoning reforms.