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this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2024
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Rent control is literally the textbook case of making a bad situation worse via unintended consequences.
If it's textbook, can you describe the textbook examples?
I learned this in my Econ101 class; if you impose rent control you will disinsintivize investment into building homes exacerbating the problem of housing supply. Some one in my class literally asked why rent control was common in places like NY and my Econ teacher dodged the question. Econ101 in the US is basically neoliberal indoctrination.
The easiest response to the textbook is to point out that the current problem isn’t supply. In the US we have 6 houses for every homeless person. We have plenty of housing stock. The problem monopoly power over housing.
Beyond that I believe that housing investment should be managed cooperatively; rather than by the profit incentive.
Can you explain the monopoly bit without me watching a youtube video?
Literally every single time anyone has ever (literally ever) linked me a Youtube video to explain something or serve as a source, that video could have been summarized in an article that would take less than 60 seconds to read. The trend should die.
TLDW: Landlords are colluding to fix pricing with algorithms. The FBI is actually doing something good for once and breaking them up.
No but I can link a youtube video that's completely unrelated
There are websites used by many of the smaller landlords which "suggests" a price for each unit. The landlord stops thinking about a price on their own, takes the website suggestion, and that's a type of price collusion. And there are large investors which own thousands of units in many buildings who apply the same price formula across them all. Both tend to greatly reduce the leverage a renter can have by shopping around multiple offers.
Thanks!
Does the Econ101 class also teach you to assume that humans are rational consumers?
I don’t remember them saying that specifically. But we did spend a lot of time on supply and demand curves which heavily implies that.
To be fair to my econ101 class for a moment when I took that class it was during the Obama years and that was a bit before progressivism made the come back it has now. A lot of people were still Fukuyamaists.
I think economics is a pretty complicated subject that is deeply intersecting with ideology. It maybe impossible fully to disentangle how the economy works with how it should work. To expect kids just out of high school to critically examine all the nuances of a field beyond the assumptions they grew up with, while simultaneously learning the basics of that field is a pretty tall order. And if the experts at the time are moving away from that way of thinking anyway, why bother?
Of course in retrospect they probably should have bothered. But that’s just how the flow of history has to work I guess.
Edit: There’s some nuance and detail I could probably add to that conclusion. But I’m running out of steam for tonight.
My problem with economics is that it takes economic theory and tries to prescribe it to reality.. rather than explain the reality of it. It is also quite vague about what happens when institutions that deliberately meddle with fundamental assumptions like that of a free market.. like Multimillion dollar MNCs that manipulate governments and essentially are policy makers who shape the market itself.
Does economic theory hold good when the free market ceases to exist as described by it?
Usually - yes they do. Everyone acts in their own interest.
This ignores a lot of factors, like location. Huge swaths of Detroit, for example, are basically ghost towns. Not many people want to live there because of this, the houses are in poor condition from neglect, and it has one of the worst crime rates in the US.
Not to mention, if you take a homeless person and stick them in a house, that doesn't fix any issues that might have caused them to become homeless in the first place, like mental health issues or drug addiction. And you've probably uprooted them from whatever support system they had.
Thank you beautiful stranger. Eloquent, succinct, and has the sources to back it up and put fools on blast.
Econ 101 is just a beginners class. It doesn't make sense to claim that Econ 101 is comprehensive or rigorous.
While I like their comment, YouTube videos are not a 'source'
Haha that's fair but it is more effort than most people bother with so I'm still pleased
Sure, so Oregon did the same thing in 2019.
"7% plus the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, West Region (All Items), as most recently published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or 10%, whichever is lower."
https://www.oregon.gov/das/oea/pages/rent-stabilization.aspx
So 10% in 2024, 14.6% in 2023, 9.9% in 2022.
What this does is encourage landlords to increase rent by the maximum allowed, because they don't know how much they can increase it next year.
Even in years where they might not have had a reason to increase rent, or increase it minimally, they take the maximum.
https://www.opb.org/article/2022/09/13/oregon-maximum-rent-increase-announced/
I guess the argument is that they will raise rent by the maximum, even at excessive risk of losing tenants? Because if the tenants will pay that much, why wouldn't the landlord charge that anyway?
Yup, it incentivizes the landlords to maximize increases.
I bought a house in October of '21, I had been renting an apartment for $1,800 a month. My mortgage is just over $2,000 and is locked in for 30 years.
I looked up my old apartment for funsies recently... $2,300 a month.
Which tracks...
$1,800 in 2021. 2022 - 9.9% increase +$178.2 = $1,978.2
2023 - 14.6% increase +$288.82 = 2,267.02
2024 - 10% increase +$226.70 = $2,493.72
Not OP but ill do you one better and link the free online textbook that is used at a number of universities.
Look up "The core Economy 1.0" chapter 11, section 10. Case study on fixing rent prices and the following consequences, along with a step by step diagram.
You forgot the other thing they teach.
Never discuss that with anyone who hasn't studied economics - the same as how we will deliberately reduce GDP to increase the unemployment rate, or sometimes a country is better off by axing a productive market and putting 50k people out of work. They don't see how and will only take it out on you.
Its just not worth the arguement.
Maybe the point is such a system that only works on numbers is inhumane and should be avoided? Economics people want to argue within economic frameworks which don't work well if some assumed market conditions don't exist. I have never seen reality work quite as described when free market breaks down and MNCs control government policymaking
People don't like applying economic theory because it reminds us of the core part of being human - I only care about myself and will act in a way that benefits me. Even altruistic people act as they do because they want to disadvantage themselves to help others and you can't force them to change.
Rent caps are one of those that sound good in theory - like telling ticketmaster to lower the price of tickets, or 0% unemployment. But doing so just means other things suffer.