It seems awfully hard to enforce all cases.
If a subletter voluntarily enters into an agreement with a lessee to pay above the rent control amount, who is the victim?
Is it not a victimless crime?
If a subletter voluntarily enters into an agreement with a lessee to pay above the rent control amount, who is the victim?
Is it not a victimless crime?
Even if the "agreement" was "voluntary" for the parties who entered it, it can still affect third parties.
Would you be less hurt when there is nothing available?
All rent control does is favor "first-come-first-serve" instead of "who pays the most".
The victim is the person not able to rent on a first-come-first-serve basis instead of someone willing to pay more than is allowed.
That's indeed the only sensible thing I can think of. But it's a very odd thing to me (that a mutual, consensual agreement between two people is governed by the interests of third parties).
And also because "consensual agreements" rarely are. Typically one party has more power than the other and can force terms.
By definition, you only get truly consensual agreements when the balance of power is equal - which it very much isn't in rental markets with deliberately restricted stock.
For the group of aspiring startup founders HN community has a very high percentage of Marxists in it :)
https://www.quora.com/What-is-your-worst-landlord-story
Of course some tenants are terrible too, but those stories seem to be rarer.