Personally, I despise it because if rent control is in effect, everyone [/i] ultimately loses. I regard rent control as being inherently bad and it is usually passed by well-meaning politicians with socialist tendencies that in reality have no conception about economics and finance. The reason for this is simple:

Suppose I owned a large apartment building. Normally, I can raise rents to keep up with the cost of living as well as make a decent profit (which is why I would invest in real estate in the first place). Under this system, I get signifigant income by providing housing, and what is left after property maintenance expenses is mine to keep. My tenants win because they get a nice place to live even if i have to raise their rent.

Suppose rent control is passed. Under rent control, I can no longer raise rents in my building for as long as it exists (the only weay around it would be to destroy the building and make a new one, which is impractical). As the cost of living goes up, I can't raise my rents to keep up, so I lose money on the property or at best break even. Not to mention, I would also have to pay property tax on this, thus hurting me further. Since I can't afford to keep the place nice, the building eventually turns into a slum. My tenants end up paying a low rent to live in a flop house. Everybody loses.

This is why I don't like rent control and will actively fight as much as I can to keep from getting it enacted. I plan to start investing in real estate very soon, and I'm lucky enough to live in a city where rent control has been on the ballot and has been defeated about 5 times. Fortunately, the current trend is moving toward unregulated rent, so it may not be something that I constantly have to be concerned with.


Government has no idea how to properly manage business-related matters (politicians have no understanding of business, are incredibly stupid, or both) , so I feel that governemnt and business are best kept as separate as possible.


What are your feelings regarding this?

Most cities don't take it seriously at all, and the ones that do have mayors already grasping for straws, and it's thrown out by next election, or by city council.

There's no logic to Rent Control, and there never will be. Unless something suddenly happened, last I checked congress didn't take it seriously either.

I agree.. Sadly though, it will likely pass because there's a ton of morons out there that will think "Hey, my rent won't ever get more expensive!!! I WIN!" Except they don't because the economy goes all to hell because of it..

It's like mininum wage. Reetards think, "Hey I'll make more money with minimum wage increases!" People that put thought into it realize that the more money you make will be less valuable and end up hurting you.

I can't honestly see an advantage to rent control. That said, the situation really makes me appreciate my landlord. She voluntarily enters rent control into the contract - as long as half (two) of the original tenants stay, rent does not increase.

Of course, she rarely, if ever, loses money on the deal because she's renting property out in a college town, which has a move-in/move-out rate.

Rent control doesn't necessarily mean you can't raise rent. Usually, it just caps the percentage increase you can make each year. That's the way it works in Berkeley, anyway. The idea is to keep landlords from raising the rent in such a manner as to force people to move out.

There are better ways of getting rid of people, it seems shady to do that.

I would try to start a proper eviction procedure if they're really causing problems. Sure, it takes awhile, but it's the most legal way to go about stuff like that.

If they're under a lease I would offer to buy out what's left to get them to leave.


For this reason, I perefer to use leases if the tenant is open to it because I can also do the opposite in RE: to a buyout-- they would have to buy their way out of what's left of their lease to leave early or else I would turn it over to collections if they tried to bail. (going through collections would ruin their credit but they would have it coming after trying to bail out of a signed lease by leaving in the middle of the night like a bunch of vagabonds)

Well duh, rent control is a bad thing if you're the greedy ******* landlord and great if you're a tenant.

How do you figure that?

Because it would keep money hungry land lord Paigewizard from raising my rents!

Keep in mind that you generally find rent control in less than desirable areas anyway, which are places you probably don't want to own property anyway.

Not getting ****ed in the ***?

Ideally rent control means you are allowed to raise rents at the same rate as inflation. If inflation was 1% last year, then you can raise your rent 1%. That way you can afford upkeep but it keeps you from screwing people over.

Does anybody else see a problem with this? If an issue is defeated 5 times, it shouldn't be an issue anymore. They're trying to pass the same thing by sheer brute force. There should be a hard limit to how often the same issue can be voted on if it is defeated. Say, no more than twice as long as any one of the sponsors of the referendum remain in office, or with a minimum waiting period after the issue is rejected.

That's how my home town passed the referendum to expand the junior high school. I'm not saying it wasn't needed, but the way it was done shouldn't be allowed. The issue was voted upon and rejected three times before being passed on the fourth attempt. Meanwhile, the school brainwashed all the kids into believing it was absolutely necessary, who then nagged and pressured their parents and grandparents into voting in the affirmative.

There goes all the profit, and therefore, all my incentive.

Wait, your profit goes away when keep your rent in accordance with the cost of living?

If that's the case, you paid too much for the property.

Rent control is another artificially fixed price much like the price caps on electricity were. Both were/are very bad things.

When I lived with my dad his rent was pretty good for the place we lived back in...1997. I was a block from the ocean. Then the whole of San Diego County went through the housing boom and EVERYWHERE had rents doubled or tripled in the span of about three years. If a rent cap were in place there would be problems. Namely many landlords would have to sell their properties to individuals/companies who could deal with the revenue loss given by the fixed rent price. This is a bad thing.

It's not really an issue where I live.

There is no cap. If the market naturally inreases, then rent goes up, even in rent control areas. It limits the percentage that you can increase the rent on an annual basis. Berekely has rent control, mostly because of the univerity here, and it limits the increase at 10% per year.

The point isn't to screw you over. The point is to limit your profit margin to something that is acceptable to both you and your tenants. Real estate is a business where you have direct control over peoples' lives, Page. It isn't like, say, a software company where you aren't negatively affecting the lives of people if your profit margin is 200%. In real estate, you directly control the cost of your tenants' largest bill, which is often a large chunk of their income. Thus, your business should not be allowed to be run like a different type of business.

Price / Rent Controls = Bad
Setting price below what the market has decided = Shortage
People = More screwed than before

No one's forcing them to live at their current locations. They can always move out. If people aren't living at landlord's property(ies), they lose $$$. There is absolutely no need for any government regulation save for making sure the house/apartment doesn't collapse beneath them.

This is correct. The incentive for Landlord's to not jack up rent is the fear of tenants leaving. If you're a tenant that jumped into a long term lease that allowed the Landlord to jack the price of rent anytime you wanted, then it's your fault for doing so. I dispise "big brother" governments, and laws like this are just another attempt at taking us that one step futher towards it.

In saying that, since Page's whole reason for posting this is because he's looking to get into Real Estate through Property Rentals, that's his fault. If you don't like the legislation (or the fear of it...which is called a "risk" in the business world), then I suggest you don't get into it. There are other, much easier, and less risky ways to make money in Real Estate. "House Flipping" is one such ways that I looked into at one time. However, this can be risky if you don't have a good sense of how to fix a house up to make it more marketable. The most important thing is finding the items of the house that will give you the most "bang for your bunk" to repair/replace/upgrade. When you combine "House Flipping" with "Foreclosed Homes" this can be a very powerful and profitable business. However, these things greatly depend on the market of the area you are starting in. If there are not a surplus of both Foreclose houses and market growth, then you may have a hard to time getting started.

I'm am in the process of implimenting a complex business plan for utilizing all types of Real Estate techniques to absolutely maximize my potential profit. Where one technique hits a gap or wall, another technique will pick it up and allow me to continue generating revenue from the property until I can sell it. But again, you have to do extinsive research on all of these Real Estate techniques, research the law in your area, speak to an attorney, research the market, research city plans to antisipate growth (and when), etc. Lot and lots of hours go into doing this. To do it right, it can often times take a year or better of research and preperating before jumping in.