But two words are conspicuously absent from the long list of recommendations: rent control.
Conservatives reel in horror at the idea of rent control, which they blame for the dilapidation and collapse of the rental market in the 1960s. Landlords, unable to put up the rent, simply let their properties (and tenants) rot. A return to rent control will strangle supply, returning us to the bad old days, they warn. Yet the same people used the same economic theory to oppose minimum wage legislation – and were wrong then, too.
Let's examine this "strangling supply" argument. The rise of landlord buyers has not provoked a fabulous new supply of property. Instead, with so little new building going on, landlords compete head-on with first-time buyers for existing properties and, as they enjoy easier access to loans and better tax breaks, outbid young adults and families time and again. The only "strangling" is of first-time buyers.
