Price controls are really tricky because they vary. They would need to be set at a local level. But they also completely violate supply and demand logistics.
Lately I feel like maybe for-profit landlording shouldn’t be allowed at all, but I’m not sure how that would work.
Some people totally can’t afford to buy, or are only short timers, and need to rent. The people who provide that service including the maintenance are providing useful thing and deserve to get paid a fair wage. You can’t pick on them and punish them.
It’s the people who buy on speculation and then rent it out for more than their mortgage, so they’re getting their investment income and their rent income both. And if you do this with enough houses you end up raking in huge amounts of money. That’s when the giant investment funds get involved.
I think not allowing giant investment funds might be a good start. Maybe limiting the number of units.
Maybe a different tactic would work: for every three units you rent, you have to provide one unit of low income housing at a government set rate (which might be free) and standard of quality. At least that way if they’re going to make a profit they have to give back.
Another option would be: you can charge whatever rent you want, but are only allowed to pay for necessary services such as property management and maintenance. Any excess income automatically goes into a government pool that is used to subsidize rent for those who can’t afford it. It absolutely cannot be siphoned off into investment income. That means if you charge low rents you’re going to rent all your properties and be able to vet the people renting them; if you charge very high rent you’re going to have a lot of unrented properties, and the government will be able to put anyone they want in there–even people who might trash the place or turn it into a meth house. That incentivizes keeping rents as low as reasonably possible, I’m trying to make your tenants happy so that you don’t end up with any vacancies.
Price controls are really tricky because they vary. They would need to be set at a local level. But they also completely violate supply and demand logistics.
Lately I feel like maybe for-profit landlording shouldn’t be allowed at all, but I’m not sure how that would work.
Some people totally can’t afford to buy, or are only short timers, and need to rent. The people who provide that service including the maintenance are providing useful thing and deserve to get paid a fair wage. You can’t pick on them and punish them.
It’s the people who buy on speculation and then rent it out for more than their mortgage, so they’re getting their investment income and their rent income both. And if you do this with enough houses you end up raking in huge amounts of money. That’s when the giant investment funds get involved.
I think not allowing giant investment funds might be a good start. Maybe limiting the number of units.
Maybe a different tactic would work: for every three units you rent, you have to provide one unit of low income housing at a government set rate (which might be free) and standard of quality. At least that way if they’re going to make a profit they have to give back.
Another option would be: you can charge whatever rent you want, but are only allowed to pay for necessary services such as property management and maintenance. Any excess income automatically goes into a government pool that is used to subsidize rent for those who can’t afford it. It absolutely cannot be siphoned off into investment income. That means if you charge low rents you’re going to rent all your properties and be able to vet the people renting them; if you charge very high rent you’re going to have a lot of unrented properties, and the government will be able to put anyone they want in there–even people who might trash the place or turn it into a meth house. That incentivizes keeping rents as low as reasonably possible, I’m trying to make your tenants happy so that you don’t end up with any vacancies.