Rent control policies in San Francisco may have fueled gentrification, Stanford economists say.
Stanford economists Rebecca Diamond and Tim McQuade, who published their findings last month, said occupants of rent-controlled apartments built before 1980 are 20 percent more likely to stay than other renters.
It might seem that rent-control policies, therefore, act as a bastion against gentrification, by allowing and encouraging long-term residents to stay, but the researchers say that's not exactly the case.
"Rent control exacerbates the housing shortage by pushing landlords to remove supply of rental housing," Diamond told SFGATE.
She explained that the expansion of rent control "would likely benefit current tenants, especially older ones who likely do not need to move very often," but in the long term, "the rental market will make all rents even more expensive by causing landlords to remove supply."
In 1994, San Francisco residents voted to expand rent-control policies and grant certain protections to renters in pre-1980 apartments. Some landlords subject to the initiative responded by converting their holdings into condos and single-family homes, or redeveloping the buildings to exempt them from rent control, said researchers, who added that this reduced the city's rental housing supply by 15 percent and led to a 7-percent citywide rent increase.
Posted by Steve Sinai
4 comments:
Yes on C volunteers are knocking on doors on my street up here in Fairmont. It could be a squeaker on Tuesday!
lol no, it's not even gonna be close. C has no chance.
When Tuesday comes to a close and the ballots are tallied rent control will be defeated in Pacifica. If all the energy of the proponents went into helping the community instead of dividing it by thinking that housing is a non profit enterprise and that the only solution is to enable a few over the betterment of all -- just think what great things Pacificans can do?Let Wednesday be the beginning of a better Pacifica with the banishment of FIA and CLSEPA from our fine city!!
When was the last time you allowed a tenant to sublet to another individual without the property owner's approval and credit check? Well, that is what Measure C allows -- that is a disaster in the making!
When was the last time you benchmarked your business to the CPI, which doesn't take into account true costs or after-tax returns? The CPI does not take all inputs into account as a measure of inflation.
When was the last time an unelected body of individuals told you what you could or could not do with your business by people who are biased and believe that private-property rights aren't relevant? Well, after Tuesday it just won't matter what you say about Measure C as it will be over and done with and soundly defeated.
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