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Cran125GPS t1_j72r25b wrote

This is the absolutely worst way to handle a housing crisis, it's populism gone off the rails. The most basic understanding of economics shows why this is a bad idea.

Every area that has tried this has made the issue worse. Look how San Francisco is doing....

This is purely a supply issue. The amount of people living here isn't changing, in fact it's going up. The only way to bring down housing prices is to increase housing. Artificially distorting the marking makes everything worse. Rent control does nothing to help increase housing supply and in fact makes it worse at is disincentivizes investment in new housing.

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outb0undflight t1_j72w2hk wrote

Yeah, a well designed rent-control policy could theoretically do a lot to stabilize a market like Worcester's, the problem is actually designing one. Government subsidies are a more effective solution.

>in fact makes it worse at is disincentivizes investment in new housing.

Landlords will also just take existing units off the market and convert them into units exempt from rent control which is part of what happened in San Francisco.

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masshole4life t1_j74aosk wrote

a lot of people don't look into these kind of things and just follow their gut. rent control is an easy sell to someone with only a surface understanding of how housing economics work.

i have already stated on here my suggestion for alleviating the housing problem, and that is allowing new triple/quad deckers to be built to modern code with modern amenities. add housing and increase upward mobility in one fell swoop. stipulate that they only be built and bought by local residents. get corporations and low bidders with deep pockets out of our housing market.

instead I'm afraid we will end up with some illogical solution that appeals to emotion to get support. rent control is one such idea.

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