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Comment by Tiktaalik | Hacker News Reader

This is the economist theoretical consensus justification though in real life tbh I dunno if I've noticed any real difference when looking at housing development patterns across Canada where there are many jurisdictions with rent control, many without, and many with some sort of blend (ie. no rent control on new builds).

If there is some incentive toward development in non-rent control jurisdictions I suspect it's strongly dominated by other factors.

(ie. Montreal probably has the most restrictive rent control in Canada but it's also seeing the strongest apartment development growth)

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Canada is a basket case for housing development but the only bright spots for outpacing demand with housing are Albertan cities with no rent control like Calgary and Edmonton.

Edmonton recently outpaced Toronto in housing development on an absolute basis with much lower housing prices and less than 1/5th the population!

Edmonton housing prices have gone up in 2025, Toronto's have declined. Alberta's population is growing, Ontario's is shrinking.

Those are the two factors explaining the housing starts, not the ineffectual rent control that exists in Ontario.

I think you're neglecting that most of Toronto is restrictively zoned for SFHs while Edmonton is upzoned across the city for 8-plexes at a minimum.

Toronto has a cumbersome permitting process that runs from months to years, while Edmonton's process is mostly automated and grants permits within weeks.

Regardless, the other relevant factor here is the actual price of housing, which is substantially higher in Toronto... and yet Toronto struggles (by design) to build anything.

Toronto has as-by-right fourplex zoning replacing its SFH zoning. As-by-right means automatic permitting, no delay.

The regulatory environment in Alberta is such that it permits housing to be built, and it does.

The same cannot be said of Toronto (or everywhere else in the nation that isn't the Prairies for similar reasons), for landed interests and the bureaucracy and corruption that comes with them are a lot more entrenched in that area.

This comment just indicates the difficulty of making accurate conclusions based on casual analysis like you're doing.

haha i misread casual as causal, but i guess, here are the "accurate conclusions" you are looking for, that is to say, what does rent control cause, as opposed to the vibes and correlations people are talking about?

it's the "credibility revolution" and someone has won a nobel prize for it.

rent control causes limited mobility (read: displacement out of town) by 20 percent; it causes reduced rental housing supply by 15 percent:

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20181289

rent control causes reduced property values:

https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/publications/h...

Did you write an entire comment by misreading "casual", the word I used, with "causal"? Otherwise, I have no idea how your reply relates to mine, as I didn't make any claims about the existence of such research.

You called his analysis "casual" so he gave you in-depth research? Otherwise, what was the purpose of calling him casual? Just drive-by insults?

Casual is a perfectly reasonable descriptor of economic conclusions based on vibes and anecdotes about apartment building in Montreal. I don't think it's reasonable to read it as an insult.

You don't need a study to tell you that if you make things more difficult and worse for landlords, the housing supply will decrease.

Courts actually need to do their jobs here for an optimal solution - e.g. it should be easy to punish shitty landlords AND easy to kick out shitty tenants.

It shouldn't take a 1+ year wait (as during COVID) to get a landlord-tenant court date to resolve issues.

The housing issue is multi-faceted however, so that's only 1 piece of the puzzle. But thanks to NIMBYs and building code overreach, it's literally impossible to build affordable housing that would rent at its own depreciation schedule.

> You don't need a study to tell you that if you make things more difficult and worse for landlords, the housing supply will decrease.

That doesn't need to be true. In post WW2 UK the government built lots of rental property. That increased the housing supply and hurt private landlords at the same time.

This is right. More supply is bad for landlords. In particular, housing developers and landlords are different economic actors!

You forgot to include the rest of the abstract:

"Thus, while rent control prevents displacement of incumbent renters in the short run, the lost rental housing supply likely drove up market rents in the long run, ultimately undermining the goals of the law."

People are able to move around, to some degree, so housing prices are a function of supply across most of the nation. Or at least the desirable portions.

Rent control on the other hand has mostly local effects.

Which means, rent control can push prices down and keep them down. There is indeed a supply reduction, and prices on average will go up—but not in the rent controlled area.

It’s still a poor idea, but it requires centralised planning to avoid.

I lived in downtown Montreal and it could just be me but the housing stock was not of the highest quality compared to most other places in Canada. Montreal as a whole feels rundown (I say this as a former Montrealer who’s lived in many places since). Cheap rent though.

> Montreal probably has the most restrictive rent control in Canada but it's also seeing the strongest apartment development growth

A wonderful city like Montreal can drive enough demand for housing to overcome red tape, and still be building far far less than what would satisfy demand. A less attribute city with lower demand for housing may build less due to lower demand, despite having less red tape.

Trust the economists on this one.

I've kept hearing for a couple of years that Canada has an outrageous housing shortage, though?

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