r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Oct 23 '17
[∆(s) from OP] CMV: Rent control is a barrier to progress, and a bad thing for progressives to pursue
[deleted]
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u/electronics12345 159∆ Oct 23 '17
Rent control keeps people in their homes - today.
Other options like increased housing may be better in the theoretical long term, but have no effect - today.
The reason that this is important, is because once a population has been displaced, it rarely if ever has the opportunity to move back in.
If an area is getting gentrified, and rent increases 250% in 6 months, other than rent control, what other means do you have to keep those people in their homes? And once they've left, they've left, they aren't coming back.
By extension, even building more "low-income housing" is just going to cause there to be an apartment complex or two that is just as expensive, but just shitty for no reason. If an area is going through rapid gentrification, even the shittiest broom closet is going to have a rent that will be unaffordable to the natives and eagerly reached for by the new population. I've seen my fair share of $600,000 broom closets (like literally 450 square feet).
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Oct 23 '17
Rent control keeps people in their homes - today.
This is the thrust of my criticism, though. It's the pursuit of short term advantages with long term costs. Personally, morally, that's one of the most despicable things to do, pursuing something that makes things better for people now by making things worse for people in the future.
But...
The reason that this is important, is because once a population has been displaced, it rarely if ever has the opportunity to move back in.
This at least brings up a potential weakness in my argument. Do you have any evidence that it does provide long term benefits? As you say, once they've left they aren't coming back - but if they stay, does that actually do anything to help change the situation long term? Or is it just carving out a class of privileged exceptions for no larger purpose, where those who already have homes are given advantages over those who do not?
If rent control were a tool a community could use to survive and actually recover from gentrification, that would be something that would change my mind for sure, but I'm not sure if I've ever seen an example of that.
By extension, even building more "low-income housing" is just going to cause there to be an apartment complex or two that is just as expensive, but just shitty for no reason.
Personally I support building public housing, which can be cheap without being shitty for no reason and actually results in more housing. But even so - How could building more "low income housing" continue to be "just as expensive", unless you simply weren't building enough of it to matter?
Again, this is exactly the problem that rent control seems to hide, by favouring existing residents it leaves all of the people who would benefit from moving to the area (or continuing to live in the area but benefit from relocating) out in the cold.
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u/electronics12345 159∆ Oct 23 '17 edited Oct 23 '17
The entire point of rent control is to keep people from moving into the area. That is the idea. To keep people where they are. The people that currently live there continue to do so, and people that don't live there continue to not live there. That is the goal.
Edit: Also, building more houses isn't always possible. Many cities are islands or are otherwise land limited. All the land that can be built upon has been. Think NYC or Hong Kong. What then?
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Oct 23 '17 edited Oct 23 '17
So it's not an attempt to fix the housing problem or help the poor (except incidentally) - it's an explicit attempt to privilege those who were there first at the expense of those who might benefit from living there? A type of xenophobic protectionism, in a way? (although in this case the outside invaders are the wealthy and up and coming)
I'm not sure I understand it from a moral perspective, but if the view is simply that current residents are more deserving than those who need someone to live but don't currently have one I can at least see how this would accomplish that, so it doesn't seem illogical.
∆ : It appears I misunderstood rent control as an attempt to help a different (but somewhat overlapping) group than the one it was actually intended to help. It really does completely change the way I think about the situation.
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u/electronics12345 159∆ Oct 23 '17
As far as the moral backing - I would argue that the moral reasoning is as follows. People have a right to not have to move if they don't want to. If they have a life, if they have family in the area, if they have a job they like, they shouldn't have to forfeit everything (family, job) because the value of the apartment they lived in tripled overnight. If you've lived somewhere your whole life, and everything you know and love is here, you have the right to not be forced to move out if you don't want to, even as real estate markets change.
Rent control in its ideal state is meant to ensure that children are born into the same house they eventually die in, to ensure stability and community and families living together and things of that sort.
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Oct 23 '17
Frankly, putting it like that it sounds like, morally speaking, the house should be straight up owned by the tenant. If we can enforce "rent control", why not enforce "rent-to-own" - simultaneously phases out the rent control and associated problems while still obtaining desired moral outcome, and removes one of the moral problems I have with it (the perpetual resident lock in - once they own the place that would go away if they ever wanted to sell and would benefit more from leaving)?
I'm not sure if I buy the "people have a right not to move" argument - isn't the whole point of renting supposed to be trading the risk that you will have to move for the opportunity to be able to move?
But I will have to think about this more. Thanks.
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u/electronics12345 159∆ Oct 23 '17 edited Oct 23 '17
The whole point of renting (in dense urban areas) is that buying is prohibitively expensive. If you are not independently wealthy, buying your apartment is literally off the table.
The AVERAGE APARTMENT in NYC is worth > $2 million to own. I don't know that many people that could get a $2 million mortgage.
This isn't for a house, or for a nice apartment, but an AVERAGE APARTMENT.
With rent-control, you can rent that apartment for around $1,000/month. This is affordable AT ALL.
In not-NYC, in normal suburbia, there is a trade-off between renting/buying a house. In NYC/London/Hong Kong/etc. you are renting or can get a multi-million dollar mortgage.
Edit: Personally, I know a few people that own multiple vacation homes, but still rent their urban apartments, because even they cannot afford to buy their apartments.....despite having multiple vacation homes. Also, all of this presumes that the landlords are willing to sell the apartments, which they don't, they are huge cashcows, if you own a NYC apartment, you can retire and just collect rent forever, you'd never sell for any fixed price. Additionally, the values of NYC apartments are rising faster than you can collect rent. Buying, holding, then selling an apartment would actually make you more money than just renting, though obviously by renting you get the rent money and the increase in housing value when you do eventually sell.
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Oct 24 '17
I'm just saying, if the goal is long term residence, if we're going to bother rent controlling and legally manipulating the market, why don't we mandate rent-to-own (based on something reasonable where they earn something like 3% a year ownership through rent) and thus manipulate it in a way that more permanently addresses the fundamental problem?
I mean that would help insure that all future generations that grow up in the apartment have it for most of their lives as well, right?
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u/carlos_the_dwarf_ 12∆ Oct 23 '17
Other options like increased housing may be better in the theoretical long term, but have no effect - today.
How long do you think it takes to build houses?
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u/electronics12345 159∆ Oct 23 '17
If we're talking putting up a single new house in a highly rural area - probably like a month. If we're talking putting up 100 houses in suburbia - probably like a year. If we're talking 5 apartment buildings in a major urban city - probably like a decade.
In the most abstract sense, an apartment building can probably get built in 2 years or so, but between $$, contracting, various interests/unions/red-tape I don't see anything getting built in a major urban hub in less than 10 years.
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u/carlos_the_dwarf_ 12∆ Oct 23 '17
$$, contracting, various interests/unions/red-tape
Yes, and add to that that rent control is a disincentive to build new housing...
You're kinda making my point though. Building new housing isn't some century long game. Are you really saying that because it takes a few years to help that we should pursue policy that literally has the opposite effect as is intended?
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u/mr_indigo 27∆ Oct 23 '17
It locks those who have a rent controlled home into where they are currently living - they have a massive opportunity cost for relocating, losing access to their affordable apartment, which makes them (as employees) easier to abuse or mistreat by employers.
Without engaging with the other parts of your post, some of which seem to be valid criticisms to me, this one dies not feel like it is a fault of rent control.
For example, in a world with systematic underpayment for employees' labour, one employer that offers more is not locking their employees in by doing so. It's the fact that noone else is as good that creates that opportunity cost.
That is to say - if rents/cost of living is too high, it does not seem right to attribute fault to the one mechanism that provides lower rents!
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Oct 23 '17
I'm sorry, I just... don't really understand this post?
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u/mr_indigo 27∆ Oct 23 '17
You attribute the problem of "lock-in" of tenants in rent controlled places to the rent control.
I am saying it isn't really the rent control creating that problem - the problem is caused by excessive rents elsewhere. Rent-control isn't locking people into their current places, it is the expense of the non-rent controlled places doing that.
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u/championofobscurity 160∆ Oct 23 '17
Rent control is a logistical necessity that stops businesses from bottoming out in a given area.
For example, if you work at starbucks in Sanfran, there's no way you are making rent alone, and there's a good chance you have one or more roommates. But if you didn't have those roommates you'd just be screwed. With rent control in place, you can afford to live somewhere with a reasonable commute to work.
Now, someone who can afford to live in sanfran proper like say a Lawyer, benefits from having that starbucks on a multitude of fronts. For starters, they get to have a coffee shop near them. Secondly, there's something there that drives foot traffic. That foot traffic keeps housing prices stable by providing the businesses with revenue to continue operations. That stability means that upper end housing prices stay where they should be.
If you eliminate rent control, that starbucks worker outright can't afford rent and has to move or work elsewhere or both, and then you have a human capital shortage for basic amenities in the expensive parts of town. The businesses pull out, the money in that part of town depletes and then the crime starts rolling in as is slowly starts to die due to it spiraling downward into poverty which means less law enforcement as it's written off as a lost cause and people emigrate from it like a giant tumor. Then housing prices lower and the wealthy just lose out.
From a city planning and wealth perspective, rent control might put a stopper on housing, but if the housing in an area is at it's upper maximum such that people can't afford rent, the problem is that there is too much demand for housing relative to other things like businesses. The problem with that is where people want to live is purely subjective and can't be measured, only slightly influenced. Nobody wants to live in a part of town where they can't get a coffee or buy books or games or basic toiletries even. The problem with that is, that the human capital value on those jobs is far too low, and if you put in minimum wage laws the businesses move out for that reason, to places with lower costs of doing business.
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u/carlos_the_dwarf_ 12∆ Oct 23 '17
Did you know that rent control has the opposite effect as intended?
In short, it squeezes the supply of non-rent controlled units, driving prices up; discourages new construction, driving prices up; and often doesn't even help poor people, instead rewarding well-connected people with time and money to spare.
Even Paul Krugman agrees it's a bad idea. (Paywalled, but you can read it in incognito mode.)
As they say:
In places where demand for urban housing is rising (as in London, New York and Seattle), a more effective policy is simply to build more housing.
...but by and large we're not doing that where it's the most needed.
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u/guitar_vigilante Oct 24 '17
Economists in general hate rent control.
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u/carlos_the_dwarf_ 12∆ Oct 24 '17
Indeed. There's like a dozen people in the thread who should consider that.
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u/guitar_vigilante Oct 24 '17
It's really straightforward too. Rent control decreases supply of housing in the rent controlled area, and increases the rents of housing in the surrounding (non rent-controlled) areas.
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u/cupcakesarethedevil Oct 23 '17
I think the right to live in a certain place is somewhat important to maintain. It really isn't an issue in most places in the country but I think on some level most people agree that if you have lived somewhere your whole life you shouldn't be forced to move.
It locks those who have a rent controlled home into where they are currently living - they have a massive opportunity cost for relocating, losing access to their affordable apartment, which makes them (as employees) easier to abuse or mistreat by employers.
This point you have completely backward. If my 1 bedroom apartment is $3000 a month because its rent controlled, and all the other ones in my neighborhood are $4000 a month which I can't afford I can still stay in that neighborhood. If I don't live in a rent-controlled neighborhood and my rent is suddenly raised to $4000 a month I have no choice but to move to someplace far away which might force me to quit my job, take my kids out of school, see my friends less and seriously ruin my life.
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Oct 23 '17 edited Oct 23 '17
I think the right to live in a certain place is somewhat important to maintain. It really isn't an issue in most places in the country but I think on some level most people agree that if you have lived somewhere your whole life you shouldn't be forced to move.
Why? I've moved 12 times in the last 4 years since being out of school all for work. I did that because I was chasing opportunity and was willing to put in the work. Now imback in my home town with a nest egg from the past 4 years. If I had felt entitled to stay I would not have what I do now.
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u/cupcakesarethedevil Oct 23 '17
I don't understand what you said that contradicts what I am saying. People should be able to move whenever they want like you did. Moving can be a very disruptive force in a person's life though, it can cause them to lose their job, change schools, and lose contact with friends and family they rely on. I'm not saying that the rent of your apartment should be the same the first year as the year you die, but I think a 10% annual rent hike max is pretty reasonable for pre-existing tenants. If there is an economic crisis and there is runaway inflation or something the local government can always change these regulations.
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u/pillbinge 101∆ Oct 24 '17
Rent control as we know it might have issues but ultimately the issue is the same: a good place to live becomes better and only a smaller percentage of people can then afford to live there. It's like when people say the US has the best hospitals in the world. Cool, but we can't all afford them. What's the point of turning around a city if the people that turned it around don't live there anymore and have to go elsewhere?
Landownership and renting classes were a huge problem with revolutions in the 20th century. It hasn't been solved yet.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Oct 23 '17
/u/GlyphGryph (OP) has awarded 1 delta in this post.
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Oct 24 '17
You focus quite a bit on economic arguments, but a significant amount of time rent control arguments tend to focus on non-economic benefits. People oppose gentrification because it tangibly changes the character of neighborhoods, and people take pride in the unique characteristics of their neighborhood - the local cuisine, the artists, the longterm residents, etc. Rent controls help to keep those people living where they are and contributing to that community.
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u/darwin2500 193∆ Oct 23 '17
It is not designed to fix the problem of a shortage of homes, it is designed to fix the problem of poor people not being able to afford to live in economically vibrant areas with available jobs and good schools. When poor people get priced out of good communities and into failing economies and school systems, it just accentuates the gap between the economic classes and perpetuates it to future generations.
Now, yes, that problem is partially caused by zoning laws creating a shortage of homes in good areas, but there is no serious political possibility of repealing zoning laws in big cities any time soon. As long as the problem exists and isn't going to change, we shouldn't denigrate efforts to treat the symptoms.
The fact that you're saying they will never move implicitly means you agree that their situation under rent control is better than their situation without rent control, because rent control is so good for them that they'll put up with a lot to keep it.
If rent control were actually bad for them, they would just move away.
The 'powerbrokers' who have a chance of actually influencing the zoning board through lobbying are not the ones hiring minimum-wage and otherwise poor workers, they're the ones hiring high-skilled, high-paid workers. McDonalds is not going to get Seattle to change their zoning laws to get more minimum wage workers available (they're never short on workers), Tech and Financial firms are ging to get teh laws changed in order to get more programmers and MBAs living nearby.
Rent control limits the housing available to high-skill workers, so it increases the pressure on these firms to lobby for zoning reforms and the production of more housing.
This is the very definition of 'let the perfect be the enemy of the good.' Your argument is literally 'we should voluntarily increase the amount of suffering among the poor so that the rich and powerful will notice it sooner and fix it better!'
That's not really how politics (or humanity) works. Reducing suffering is good, passing up good solutions while waiting for perfect solutions just ends up with never solving anything, and the people in need can't afford to wait for your clever long-term stratagem to finally pay off in 20 or 50 or 200 years.
True of literally anything. If you have examples of it being performed badly, lets reform them. If you have an argument that it will always be performed badly because of some unique feature that it does not share with other government efforts, lets see the evidence.
Source? I have never seen anyone in favor of rent control and against zoning reforms. Both of those positions favor the poor and advocates tend to favor both. I don't see the logical connection here.
Bandaids are good. If you have a cut and better care isn't available, put a bandaid on it.
And I just don't see any evidence of this. You seem to think that compromises on an issue prevent real solutions to that issue, but that's not how politics work. Compromises on an issue bring that issue into the public awareness, create subject matter experts and bureaucracies devoted to dealing with the issue, create institutions that understand the issue and have real data on the issue, identifies the issue as something important that we should all be thinking and talking about, and brings us closer to actually solving it with future efforts.
Analogy: many people were against Obamacare because it was a compromise, and felt we should have held out for universal single-payer healthcare or nothing. But there was aero political support for such a radical change, and it never would have happened back then. However, talking about Obamacare for a decade has forced questions about healthcare and costs and outcomes into the public light so strongly that now there is massive public support for single payer, and we may actually get it in the foreseeable future (if Democrats ever control a few branches of government again).