Hacker News Reader

Comment by baby | Hacker News Reader

I’m surprised to read negative opinions about rent control. The alternative to rent control is having one’s rent double next week. I’m amazed that rent control was not a thing!

View on HN

Sorry if this comes off snarky but perhaps others posting here can see past next week. All too often these quick fix Band-Aids end up causing more problems in the long run while also spreading the problem far beyond where it had previously been contained.

Sure. In the mean time I’m not renting your place if it doesn’t have rent control. And anybody who does is insane.

Market solutions in action in these last 2 posts!

The market solution is rent control + more housing. We got one.

Except rent control means less housing!

Source?

If there was abundant supply, you could tell a landlord doubling your rent above current market rate to go pound sand. Rent control restricts supply.

I think that artificially decreasing the price of a good/service through regulation decreases the incentive to produce more of the good/service.

The solution to the housing crises is to build more housing. This discourages building more housing.

Why? In both cases there should be more housing. If rent control is a thing, now you have more rich people who can’t find a place and are willing to put money in building new housing.

Most rent control implementations are far too restrictive and create severe market distortions that can last generations. This one, thankfully, is not, and the allowable increases mean units are unlikely to get too far out of whack with market rates.

The market's too high, lets implement market controls to keep prices at the market.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com