Arguments Against Rent Control

As if all of the more or less hidden fees were not bad enough, young, single, and poor families able to find a rental property are often discriminated against. Landlords tend to use factors such as income and credit history in determining who gets their rental property Richer families end up doing better with rent control laws because of this. Poorer people who make up a larger part of the population end up out of a house to live in.

In Cape Cod, the raising rents for apartments and houses are driving the working class into motels, where they could be paying $880 a month for a room in the winter season but $1,440 a month during the summer (tourist season). The apartmentguide.com describes the winter to be the best time of the year to move, because most peoples bank accounts would be low due to the holiday season, and the demand for apartments are lower since fewer tenants decide to move. Rent is especially difficult for the elderly, since 30 percent of them use half of their income on housing, according to theatlantic.com. The average homeowner over the age of 65 has enough money to afford 42 months of care in a nursing home, whereas the average renter over the age of 65 wouldn't have enough wealth to cover even one

In 2011, the Los Angeles Human Right to Housing Collective joined together with citywide residents to protest unfair housing practices, and increasing rents at Los Angeles City Hall. Over the past four years, Los Angeles residents have seen rapid increases in rent, which is leading to more and more people moving out of L.A. in the hopes of finding more affordable living arrangements. The three percent rental increases that Los Angeles residents are accustomed to have been climbing this past year, and in 2016 many Angelenos could be seeing a four or maybe even five percent cost of living increase. Studies from the U.S. Census will show that Los Angeles renters occupy not even 50 percent of Los Angeles county housing units. In comparison to the percentage LA renters are taking home per paycheck, it is now becoming more affordable to buy property in Los Angeles, rather than rent.

Affordable housing has become the paramount issue of cities and dense urban areas. San Francisco is the posterchild of an unaffordable city that regardless of immense investment from blue chip firms like Google, Facebook, and their ilk of startups evaluated at $1 billion or more, policymakers and elected officials must wrestle with the housing affordability crisis that is considered endogenous to swaths of homelessness and record statistics on crime. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has made affordable housing the centerpiece of his legislation and championed the cause as a social justice issue—neighborhoods must remain affordable to maintain diversity for all races, ethnicities, and low-income families. A small sample of 827 New Yorkers by the NY1-Baruch College City Poll found the main concern of respondents was affordable housing while crime, jobs, and homelessness were peripheral problems (Cuza, 2016). The public discourse on how to address housing across the United States has pointed to negative externalities that surround rent-regulation and homeownership. Conversely, for this essay I will present various cases in order to illustrate the housing crunch is influenced less by housing and land regulations, or antagonistic homeowners but is induced by global market forces.

of rent will not increase as quickly as inflation. While the moral side of rent

As the leasing amount and house rent goes up while there is stagnation in wages and salaries, affording the monthly rent becomes difficult leading to gentrification in the city.

Now it becomes difficult, if finding a place to live during a prosperous age wasn’t hard enough, try finding one during the time of recession. Job losses are very common during this age, and with that comes the difficulty to afford proper housing. Most end up on the street, and others barely struggle to stay sheltered whether it be in their car, assuming they still have one or staying in public shelters. Ehrenreich mentions in her 2011 blog that, “Housing expert Peter Dreier says that “people who’ve lost their jobs, or, at least, their second jobs, cope by doubling or tripling up in overcrowded apartments, or by paying 50 or 60 or even 70 percent of

Imagine living in a neighborhood with all of your friends, family, and a new strip mall that opened down the street. Your parents are concerned but you don’t see the problem. They know that a new strip mall means new shoppers. These new shoppers are going to want to move closer to that new strip mall, and once they do, everything changes. The more middle class people move in, the higher the property value, the higher the property value, the higher the rent and mortgages are. Eventually you have to move away from everybody into a neighborhood with worse schools and a poorer economy because your parents can’t afford to be there anymore. This type of story happens everyday to low income families, the process is called gentrification. Gentrification is not a good practice, since it moves groups of people out of their homes and neighborhoods.

Furthermore, gentrification causes homelessness in several communities. When neighborhood undergoes renovation and improvement, various homes and business are lost. The renovation system tears down houses and apartments. The new facilities built are too expensive for previous tenants to continue living in them. The poor and middle-class living in this neighborhood lose their homes and jobs leaving them homeless. These individual ends up on the streets with nowhere to go due to the wealthy class taking over their communities. Another reason why these individuals end up on the street is due to high property taxes placed on them by the gentrification of their communities. The individual cannot afford to pay

Gentrification is a type of modernization that causes the culture to be forgotten for new ideas and experimental ways. Gone are the bustling downtown areas where culture thrives and a place where people relax with music and food and income distinguished coffee shops and hangouts that the younger generation is so interested in. Austin used to be a place where people can come to enjoy the scenery and live next to the past, but because of gentrification, the culture is declining at a rapid pace due to the vast increase of affordable housing, interstate splits, and a more modern setting.

In San Fransisco there’s a site called Rentberry that allows renters to bid on apartments, similar to Ebay. Renters set a rent price, deposit, and other negotiables and the best offer gets the apartment. Services similar to Rentberry are popping up across the country as Americans who rent property surpassed those who own their own property. In half of the U.S’s 100 largest cities renters make up more than half of the people living in the city. The idea for Rentberry came from the concept that Americans bid on homes to own, so why not bid on rental properties. Critics claim that rent prices will rise 5% because of the expansion of rent-bidding. However, results found that rent actually decreased by 5.1% on average. Economists say that there

New York City is one of the places that has rent stabilization. If you were a middle class working individual looking for a place to live it might be more difficult than you would have thought. The rent control policy in simple terms is that the government has set limits on how much a landlord can charge for rent. This policy was intended to lower prices and balance out the control between residents and landlords so that tenants with lower wages can housing. Although this policy does have positive aspects, there are many unintended consequences as a result. Since there is a control on how much a landlord will charge, many of these rentals have lower-quality living conditions. There is also a problem with availability because many rentals already

Having to rent or buy a home can cost quite a bit nowadays, yet at the same time the government provides enough

• “We believe the new rent is very reasonable and below the market value”; and

When rent control is introduced, potential investors seek out another market with a higher return and this has negative effects on the housing market as investment plummets. There is no incentive to build new housing developments in the short term or long term. In an unregulated market there is a potential to make a great return on a real estate investment that has been properly planned. In contrast, it becomes very difficult to profit from residential housing in a city with rent control. This is their livelihood and they need to be able to turn a profit for themselves and the other parties involved in their investment. As a result, developers will start building commercial structures instead of residential housing. As an article from The New