If Obama can promise “free or reduced cost” health care to everybody, why not “free or reduced cost” rent? Of course, “free or reduced cost” means that everybody will be forced to rent an apartment meeting the specifications of the specifications government.
Reduced cost rent has already been provided courtesy of the housing meltdown. Rent is charged based loosely upon the value of the property in question in order to provide the landlord with a ROI he can live with. When prices are stratospheric and carrying costs high much more rent must be charged to offset these costs. Who do you think is buying all of these foreclosed houses? When the prices get low enough the investor/landlord’s gobble them up and shortly thereafter new rentals are on the market.
Yeah, rent control worked so well for New York. Massachusetts (!) voters in a referendum question outlawed rent control about a decade ago, much to the chagrin of the Democratic ruling classes. Guess what? Boston’s still there.
People in my native city (NY, NY) have an almost religous fervor about rent control. If there was ever an insane economic policy, rent control is it.