[nathanbedford]

I am sure many FReepers join me in a visceral reaction to rent control. I find it repugnant to a Lockean respect for property which I hold fundamental to the rights of man.

I think the New York City rent control laws are organized theft of the landlords' incidents of ownership of real property by the city of behalf of the tenant. Politicians are often not very bright but they are smart enough to count and they have figured out that there are more tenants who vote than landlords.

We see the entitlement society oozing outward into every aspect of American life with the center of the virus located in Washington DC. Rent control is but one example of politicians buying votes by confiscating property and transferring it to voters

But let me ask a more difficult question. If we FReepers believe that a state has the power reserved by the federal Constitution to prohibit abortion or to prohibit buggery among consenting homosexual adults who act in the privacy in their own apartment bedrooms, why does the state not have the power to control the rent for the whole apartment?

[Dilbert San Diego]

I’ve heard that rent control severly hurt New York City real estate, and actually led to a decline in availability of apartments. I’ve heard that rents actually increased when new apartments come on the market.

I don’t know all the ins and outs, but I’ve heard that rent control “grandfathers” in long term tenants at a lower rent, while new tenants can be charged more. So in effect, longer term tenants get subsidized.

And, I’ve heard that New York has had thousands of abandoned apartment buildings, as landlords couldn’t raise the rent to pay their own operating costs of these buildings.

Rent control, as happens with other governmental controls, distorts the market.

[Sherman Logan]

To answer your final question, the 14th Amendment is usually considered to have brought state and local governments under the limitations imposed on government power in the Bill of Rights and other parts of the Constitution.

The original Founders would probably have agreed that states, and by extension cities, have such power. They were by no means libertarians. They were in favor of limitations on federal power as a means of protecting the governmental power of states, which prior to the Civil War implemented a great many laws we would find unconstitutional today. Including violations of freedom of speech, religion and press.

Whether the 14th was originally intended to bring states under constitutional limitations is a whole other question.

[cryptical]

If we FReepers believe that a state has the power reserved by the federal Constitution to prohibit abortion or to prohibit buggery among consenting homosexual adults who act in the privacy in their own apartment bedrooms, why does the state not have the power to control the rent for the whole apartment?

That's quite the assumption you're making. I'll grant abortion, maybe, although it appears that the Feds have taken that power away from the states. I'm not buying the states power to regulate private conduct between two consenting adults. Rent control is a taking from the property owner, and interferes in peoples right to contract.

[Navy Patriot]

Ya picked two poor examples, abortion is the the taking of human life without due process and representation for the human, and buggery is a public health matter for mortal communicable diseases.

[Red Badger]

Rent control creates slums.
That is the object.
Create situations where there are ‘victims’ that need politicians ‘help’.
The more ‘victims’, the more votes.
Renters outnumber landowners, so there are more voters that need ‘help’ than landowners......

[Pearls Before Swine]

What’s the difference between price controls on milk and price controls on rent?

A matter of sign. Rent controls are price limits, which induce shortages; milk price controls are price supports, which cause higher than market prices and induce surpluses.

Rent controls are bad if you're a landlord but look "good" if you are a renter; milk price supports look good if you're a farmer, but you pay for them as a taxpayer and a milk consumer.

[count-your-change]

Firstly, Dos the state, in fact, NOT have the power to regulate an economic activity such as renting out a living space?

[napscoordinator]

If they are able to drop rent control, it will end up a disaster. I know that sounds crazy, but if they rent those apartments for the price they should or could than all of those millions of “poor” people will be moving south and make states like North Carolina and Virginia even more purple. You have to give and take. Or am I not looking at this correctly.

[Londo Molari]

I like rent control in NYC — it keeps the scum in the city instead of oozing out into the suburbs (except the Poconos in PA).