The Folly of Price Controls
Oct 06, 2019
First order thinking: rent control keeps rents low.
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) 4 October 2019
Real world (higher order empirical) reasoning: rent controls keep people out of the rental market by constraining supply, and letting rent-seekers (literally) to keep cheaper than market appartments.
Always failed. Alwaysl. https://t.co/e22IYpQ7sb
Also, the quality of the real estate deteriorates. Apartments could have thin drafty windows, chipped paint, inefficient appliances, a leaky roof, and scores of vermin but people will still line up to sign the lease.
Why should the landlords sink money into fixing anything when they can't increase the rent and there's a ridiculous waiting list?
The city’s queue for rent-controlled housing is so long that it’s being considered by the Guinness Book of World Records. On average, it takes nine years to be granted a rent-controlled property – and that jumps to two decades in some of the most popular neighbourhoods.
Rent control (maximum price) is the opposite of minimum wage. They both sound good and quite a few people even benefit from them but overall they severely distort the market and cause a lot of problems. Unfortunately, such policies appeal to ignorant voters who don't, or can't, see the second order effects.
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