Reply #23: I lived in a rent controlled apt in the bay area in the mid nineties [View All]

[salin]

I lived in a pocket of poverty (and thus affordable rents, if you could stand the sound of gunfire) in a very wealthy area. Rent conttrol kept the rent rising marginally - while rents in the region (and even housing in the pocket of poverty community) were skyrocketing. Rent in a better but not great neighborhood in 1996 was about 800 for a two bedroom (and that was cheap); and by 1998 that same rent was going to 1200. My large one bedroom started at just under 600 in 1994, and rose to, if I recall, 650 or 690 by 1999.

Rent control was ending just as I moved. Don't know what happened later. However the housing market in neighboring communities with no rent control was skyrocketing at a much higher pace than in ours during the same period - even as properties were being bought up and "gentrified" (that is - converted to higher end properties.) The idea that rent control makes housing costs higher, as some rwgers contend, is absurd. At the same time, properties still increased in value in the rent control area - so the idea that somehow rent control prevented owners from realizing any investment value from properties was also not true - it just slowed the rate (and thus also reduced the risk in times of bust) of the increase.