Actually, rent control is a truly malevolent policy when coupled with criminal sanctions against landlords who fail to maintain standards of upkeep which often becomes impossible when the rent is controlled below market value. Landlord is caught in a squeeze and must forfeit his building, but that often incurs criminal penalties.
Is there property tax control on these properties?
I’ve known some rent control landlords and many occupants of rent controlled apartments.
Many of the renters I knew were well off. Actually they all were well off. They lived during the week in their cheap apartment and spent the weekends at their country homes or waterfront homes. Some owned Mercedes that they used to drive to their real home, one had a home and a 43’ sailboat. It was all legal. A woman I worked with actually had tears in her eyes talking about losing her $210 a month rent controlled place. She needed a tissue from her Louis Vuitton purse.
The story for the landlords was very different. One of the landlords I knew had to get an entirely new heating system for his apartment building. The commie rent control board lowered his rents because they said he now had a more efficient heating system.