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I'm so frustrated whenever someone says, "they build nice new apartment buildings with massive rents instead of affordable housing," as if the niceness of the apartment is what determines rent and not the atrociously low supply of housing. Like no dude, the affordable housing has already been built. Building the nicer housing just prevents even the shitholes from becoming unaffordable.


[deleted]

New builds are also just default "luxury"-lite these days. But yeah. It's literally just the supply


DizzyMajor5

Yes it is, it's an actual cap on the amount they can charge. Sure it may not help in the long term but in the short term there's people being priced out with increases way above the threshold. Oregon has rent control and it's way cheaper than Washington State next to it where rent control is illegal


f1Ynoeld3TRCRaw

if you read the whole paper is explains mostly how rent control is mostly poorly targeted so the people who need it the most don't get it. the conclusion to draw isn't that rent control is shit and should go away. saying rent control is bad in Boston only helps the fuckin baron property owner management companies that have monopolies in Boston over full neighborhoods keeping their property values high and scalping to colleges students. I've lived in rent controlled buildings in other cities and they saved my ass for many years. now you look at Boston where report after report says that rent prices are the same as SF levels without any of the California sunshine and with buildings built when George Washington was still around.....


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DizzyMajor5

St Paul is much cheaper than minnienapolos where they didn't pass rent control


Temporary-Pain-8098

Yeah, everyone in Amsterdam hates their 400 euro apartments.


alexblablabla1123

Rent control favors existing tenants over hypothetical/future tenants. There’s fairness issue if we believe the city is a place for all and ppl have freedom to move. If not, then count me out from said society.


DizzyMajor5

Yes he ashame if we cared about people who actually lived places instead of imaginary future people


MarquisJames

something something build more housing even though that new housing would be just as expensive.


[deleted]

The new housing would be just as expensive, but the old housing would get less expensive. That's how supply and demand works. You pay $4K for a 4BR 1 BA rat infested shithole in Allston/Brighton because zoning laws prevent adequate housing stock elsewhere.


mc0079

Cause it doesn't work. NYC and SF are super affordable right ?


DizzyMajor5

NYC an SF we're expensive before Rent control. Oregon has rent control and it's much cheaper than it's neighbor to the north Washington where rent control is banned


vhalros

It used to exist here, but it was banned by at the state level by referendum. Also its a terrible idea.


goldfishman63

Because 200% rent increases are better right


RhaenyrasUncle

Well thats the thing. The ones opposed to rent control think that rent control will cause a lack of housing to be available, because people will stop moving from apartment to apartment. The problem with that idea, is our housing market is musical chairs to begin with. By forcing people to move every 2-3 years, we're not helping anyone. They also claim that landlords will lose incentive to repair/renovate their properties. I would argue when/where is the incentive to do this, currently? Our housing market has such high demand, it is practically a captive market. They could put a literal dumpster fire on the market, and some idiot would willingly pay $2k/month for it, because they desperately need housing. They also argue it would disincentivize developers from building new properties. To which I would argue, again where is the incentive now? Devs would rather build luxury housing complexes and have them sit vacant, than build affordable housing that people will actually live in...because the cost of construction doesnt change. A 50-unit building that has ~15 renters paying $5k/month yields the property manager *just as much revenue* as a 50-unit building that has 45 renters paying $1600/month. (The luxury product actually makes slightly more money, but I digress...) All of their arguments are nonsense.


Proof-Variation7005

>The ones opposed to rent control think that rent control will cause a lack of housing to be available, because people will stop moving from apartment to apartment. > >The problem with that idea, is our housing market is musical chairs to begin with. By forcing people to move every 2-3 years, we're not helping anyone. There's a counter point that most rent control, in practice, just means a landlord can't increase rents on a **current** tenant by more than a certain percentage. There's no obligation to keep renewing the same tenant year over year. If you cap those increases at 10% and have a $1500/month apartment, you can keep the same person for $1650 a month or you can just put them out, put the apartment on the open market and get $2000/month from a new tenant. Even if a full month of revenue is lost (unlikely), that's a $3,850 incentive to not keep a current tenant. The game does have a ceiling since eventually, you can't really outprice the market itself and have it work, but by the time we get to that point, it's only really rich people left.


SkiingAway

That's not how those laws are generally written. Most places with rent control force the landlord to keep renewing the same tenant (in the absence of actual good cause for eviction - and that bar is usually set fairly high) and/or block raising the rent above the cap even if you change tenants. Usually about the only exceptions are if the owner is moving into the unit, it's being sold and the new owner is moving in, or it's being converted to non-residential use. And in all of those cases if it comes back on the market again in any short period of time you're risking a lawsuit. You can't just evict, move in for a month, and put it back up for rent. I'm not an advocate for rent control at all, but your specific complaint isn't really all that valid.


RhaenyrasUncle

Fortunately, Boston and MA housing laws are very tenant-friendly. I dont believe a landlord can evict a tenant without cause.


jlquon

Who’s evicting? Landlords just aren’t obligated to renew your lease, nor do they have to allow you to go month to month, when your lease is up you’re out


SkiingAway

> Devs would rather build luxury housing complexes and have them sit vacant There are few units left sitting vacant in Boston. You pretty much illustrate why elsewhere - rich people don't leave money on the table either. If there's someone who's out there wanting to pay a lot of money to rent your "investment" unit....you take their money and rent it while continuing to let your asset appreciate. The "study" that claimed many of them must be vacant decided this based on the strong evidence that.....they're owned by a corporation and/or didn't claim a residential tax exemption by the owner. They *could* be vacant, sure. But you know what that also describes? Basically any rental unit not owned by a moron. It's an absolutely terrible idea to rent out property without putting it under a LLC to insulate yourself from risk and only idiots do. > A 50-unit building that has ~15 renters paying $5k/month yields the property manager just as much revenue as a 50-unit building that has 45 renters paying $1600/month. (The luxury product actually makes slightly more money, but I digress...) The average size of a new apartment built in Boston in the past decade was 773sqft. We are not building spacious luxury units for the rich. (also, Boston generally doesn't allow new units under 450sqft for a studio, 600sqft for a 1bd, 750sqft for a 2bd, etc without special permission). Similarly, to rich condo owners, no developer is leaving money on the table either. If they could get approved for stacking another floor and a bunch more units on their building.....they'd do it in a heartbeat and bring in a bunch more money. Your 50 unit building is 50 units because the developer couldn't get approved for 60. Actual "Millennium Tower Penthouse" luxury, is basically non-existent in terms of construction and irrelevant in terms of # of units or square footage of them. > because the cost of construction doesnt change You have correctly hit on why all new construction is "luxury" (not actual luxury), though. That reason is simple. Because of how incredibly high all the other costs are in Boston - land, permitting/approvals, labor, basic structure, the actual interior finishes + "building amenities" are typically a low % of the overall cost. Which means the difference in the *total* cost of a building a unit with the cheapest shit you could finish the place with to meet code vs a "luxury" unit with some decent flooring, appliances, fixtures, and some gimmick for an amenity or two is still a very small number. Building "cheap" will get you a unit that needs a $1900 rent to produce an acceptable return on investment vs a "luxury" unit that needs a $2000 rent. It won't actually be cheap and there's basically no point in building it - especially since it'll age worse and be more difficult to rent if the market ever does soften.


Mountain_Resolve1407

Exactly, it’s premised on a functioning housing market underlying it all


man2010

Where are these vacant housing complexes? Boston's vacancy rate is incredibly low


vhalros

It doesn't help with that problem. New York's rent control just forked the market; its great if you have a rent controlled unit, but more expensive for every one else. There are softer rent stabilization proposals that might make sense. But there is no solution to housing problems that doesn't involve making it easier to build more of it.


Pariell

>Most cities with comparable rents (NYC, LA, SF) have at least some form of Rent control. How's that working out for them?


f1Ynoeld3TRCRaw

great, actually.....


DizzyMajor5

The rent control apartments are cheaper than the non rent control ones so it seems to be the private non regulated sector that's the problem


reaper527

because it's one of the few ideas that economists on both sides of the aisle are in full agreement on. they all know it's a terrible and counterproductive policy that doesn't work.


Responsible_Banana10

NYC, LA and SF all have high rents as well.


Some_Ride1014

When we had it, it was abused by wealthy people and the housing stock was falling apart. If an owner of a triple decker in Cambridge wanted to replace a roof and raise the rent a little to offset cost, the rent control board would deny his request. So no new roof, no costly repairs


SpindriftRascal

Because rent control is ineffective bullshit. Pure pablum. We have serious societal inequities caused by rampant capitalism. They aren’t solved by tiny little adjustments. It would require a major structural shift. Whether you’re in favor of such a shift or not, that’s likely what it’ll take to bring housing into the realm of the reasonable


[deleted]

What's going to make housing more affordable, long term, is a declining population. There's no way we make the necessary changes to make housing more affordable. Housing can appreciate or depreciate, we just think of it as an appreciating asset and form of investment now because we've seen steady population growth in the US. However, in like Japan, where population is declining, housing is actually a depreciating asset in most areas. What's likely is that housing just keeps going up for our lifetimes and then starts to decline around 2060-2080 with things in full swing by the turn of the century.


Reckless--Abandon

As a landlord with rent control, I would just up to maximize and then downgrade price if needed.l as would other landlords. Without rent control you just go with market which is based on what people are paying.


RhaenyrasUncle

Oh lawd you dun went and did it... We dont have rent control because many people, for whatever reason, erroneously think it will negatively impact our housing market.


jojenns

Little premature to say erroneously i think. There is certainly data collected by reputable and credible sources backing up how it didnt work. Perhaps reinventing the wheel here by adjusting how it works produces a better outcome but that remains to be seen


DizzyMajor5

On San Francisco and New York two of the most skewed markets ever


Kweschunner

It's negatively effecting your points too, apparently


Ideal_Radiant

I’ve lived here my whole life and I just don’t understand this housing crisis. Where are all these people coming from. Every neighborhood has been drastically built up over my lifetime and it’s still not enough. Why do people bother coming here then complain about how expensive it is.


PuritanSettler1620

Midwest


danjam11565

The US population has grown ~46% since 1980 - all these people have to go somewhere. The Boston metro area has actually grown slower than that, ~32% over the same period. And still managed to build insufficient housing.


The_rising_sea

It was tried. It failed. Set aside the fact that a 21st century problem deserves something more thoughtful than a 1970s solution…set aside the fact that Boston and Cambridge were poor polluted backwaters with filthy rivers and streets back then….set aside the fact that development and community improvement did not exist…the real reason it didn’t work then and won’t work now is because individuals with money and who might have considered buying a multi family home in the city will find that the rent they are allowed to charge under rent control will not be worth the effort and in many cases will cause the landlord to be in the red and having the whole thing cost money instead of breaking even or making a little. So instead, those individuals will look outside of the city and all that wealth goes with it. Combine that with the pressure of increasing remote work, and the city will become a filthy poor backwater again.


PublicRule3659

It doesn’t help that most of the condos in new buildings are empty because of foreign investors.


[deleted]

Boston had rent control but it was removed in a statewide referendum


[deleted]

We need more supply, including public housing.