The landlord had told them he wanted to raise the rent to $3,500 and when they complained he decided to raise it to $9,500.

“We know that our building is not rent controlled and this was something we were always worried about happening and there is no way we can afford $9,500 per month," Yumna Farooq said.

  • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    It shows that “no rent control” basically means “your landlord can throw you out at any time without notice” by raising rent to a ludicrous amount. It completely undermines all other tenant protections. Even conservatives should be supporting at least modest rent controls to prevent cases like this.

    • extant@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Most conservatives are middle class small business owners and landlords, this is why they are always supportive of “small government” it’s just a dog whistle for unregulated market.

      • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        I saw a documentary that spoke to some Twump (sic) supporters who lived in a shithole building that they didn’t realize was owned by the Kushners. I can’t recall anything else about it that might help identify it.

      • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        They’re not generally cartoonish evil, I’m sure they agree that some tenant protections against sudden eviction are a good thing, and allowing unlimited rent hikes completely obliterates all that.

        • PaganDude@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          They’re not generally cartoonish evil

          You really need to look at how they’re talking on landlord forums and such, the way they speak about tenants. Reality will remove this naive idea from your mind.

        • extant@lemmy.world
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          From my experience most people don’t care until they’re inconvenienced in some way, so they won’t have an opinion on it so they wait until someone they rely on and trust to tell them how they should feel. I think we all know which entertainment network is going to tell them all about why rent control is ruining Canada/America.

        • creamed_eels@toast.ooo
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          1 year ago

          I read a study that showed they’d rather hurt themselves than help others, even if helping others helped themselves as well, directly or indirectly. It tracks, frankly

            • Rambi@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              It makes complete sense given the other behaviour landlords exhibit, and how they make money.

      • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        this is why they are always supportive of “small government” it’s just a dog whistle for unregulated market.

        A “dog whistle” is something disguising the true message, while there’s no attempt to hide it here.

        (I am in support of an unregulated market, but also of trade unions and consumer unions and anarcho-syndicalism, which are natural parts of it)

      • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I think last year’s inflation spike demonstrates that “2.5% per year regardless of your carrying costs or maintenance costs changing due to interest rates and inflation” is not modest. A reasonable rent control policy would let landlords gradually adapt to market realities without giving them the power to gouge or de-facto evict tenants with sudden rent spikes.

    • mindcruzer@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Yes, rent control, our panacea.

      Negative Effects on Supply: Rent control can potentially lead to housing shortages over the long term. When landlords are unable to raise rents to cover maintenance and operating costs or to generate a reasonable return on their investment, they may have less incentive to maintain or invest in their properties. This can lead to a deterioration in the quality of rental housing and a reduction in the overall supply of rental units. In some cases, landlords may convert rental properties into other uses, such as condominiums or commercial spaces, further reducing the supply of rental housing.

      Inefficiencies and Reduced Mobility: Rent control can lead to inefficiencies in the housing market. Tenants in rent-controlled units may have less incentive to move, even if their housing needs change, because they want to keep their low rents. This reduced mobility can make it harder for new renters to find suitable housing.

      Selective Impact: Rent control often applies to older buildings or units built before a certain date. This can create disparities in rent levels between newer and older housing stock, potentially discouraging the construction of new rental units and leading to further imbalances in the housing market.

      A short term band-aid that causes long term problems. Government price controls are a tale as old as time.

      • ClumZy@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        We have rent control in Paris, France. Appartments are still expensive, but I pay 1600 euros per month for 60sqm in the center of one of the liveliest cities in the world.

        Rent control WORKS.

        • mindcruzer@lemmy.ca
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          It’s inevitable that any type of price control will lead to supply/demand issues. That’s great it worked out for you but it is well documented that rent control harms rental markets long term. Anyone who disagrees is in denial.

      • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Jesus, I’m getting it from both ends here, somebody else is dumping on me for suggesting that a rent-control system that’s a few points above inflation so that landlords could adapt to the market without abruptly bankrupting their tenants was somehow a reasonable compromise.

        I’m not arguing for extreme rent-control policies, just that no rent control is bad because it lets landlords write their own eviction laws.

        Peg it at like 2.5% or 5% per year above inflation and you can’t use it as a sudden backdoor eviction but you also let landlords adapt to market reality over time.

        Capping rents might be stupid for all the reasons economists say, but putting a damper on sudden price shifts is just being humane.

        • SinAdjetivos@beehaw.org
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          The “humane” thing would be to make any and all rent seeking behavior very explicitly illegal, but that’s unlikely to happen.

          • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            So wait where do college students live in your world?

      • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I think your second point is valid, but the first is upside-down. Landlords compete with tenants for plots and bank loans. If they started leaving the market, more plots will free up and banks will be forced to start giving out loans to tenants. This will allow people who are currently tenants to build their own houses, rather than needing to rent. And your third point only applies if you exclude some properties from rent control, which is what Ontario seems to be doing.

        • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Uh, part of the point of the greenbelt is to stop building detached houses because they’re actually environmentally quite bad. I mean maybe individuals could work together to put together a co-op but Housing Now TO says that municipal governments generally block any of those that would pencil out.

          • MrMonkey@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            I wanted to build a duplex but “zoning laws” say that wasn’t allowed, only single family detached houses with at least X amount of land.

            Most zoning laws are serious bullshit and work as defacto segregation to keep the dirty brown poor people away from the nice good rich folk. It’s why suburban school is a totally different things from poor urban school.

            Zoning laws are why developers in LA can’t afford to build anything other than luxury condos. Land is literally too expensive to build. As an example: a requirement to have at least X parking spots per X units, even when it’s built right next to a metro and a bus depot and you’re building low income housing for people who are less likely to own cars in the first place.

            Too many NIBYs whining about things.

          • Rocket@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            part of the point of the greenbelt is to stop building detached houses because they’re actually environmentally quite bad.

            If we’re being honest, all housing is environmentally bad. And not just environmentally bad, but bad for society in general. A necessary evil for the individual, perhaps, but it stands to reason that they should carry a high cost to account for the negative externalities they place on everyone else.

        • Rocket@lemmy.ca
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          Landlords compete with tenants for plots and bank loans.

          Not really. Landlords need tenants. If tenants would rather own, then there would be nobody for the landlord to rent to. Landlords serve those who prefer to rent. Of note, one reason people prefer to rent is a belief that the housing market is about to crash. With a lot of signs suggesting that is a real possibility on the near horizon, this is why rents have skyrocketed recently. Nobody wants to be the bag holder, so many more are, right now, opting to rent over buying in order to wait and see what happens.

          banks will be forced to start giving out loans to tenants.

          There is nothing that forces them to give loans to tenants. If landlords start leaving the housing market it is likely that credit offers will grind to a halt. The bank wants absolutely nothing to do with a security that people are running away from. Furthermore, the money leaving housing is apt to flow into productive businesses, which means that any credit that the banks are still willing to extend will go in that direction.

          • Imotali@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            landlords serve those who would prefer to rent

            If you honestly believe this then you are delusional. I’m sorry there’s pretty much no kind way to put it. This statement is that egregiously erroneous that it is so incongruous with reality so as to be delusional.

            • Rocket@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              Oh, right. People only pay for things they don’t want. How could I have forgotten?!

              • UndoLips@lemmy.world
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                For what it’s worth, surveys in my country repeatedly show that renters would prefer to own. But the market here is rough and banks are denying people loans even with a lower monthly payments than their existing rent.

                I would think it is the same in the US, but most people here rent because they can’t buy.

                • Rocket@lemmy.ca
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                  surveys in my country repeatedly show that renters would prefer to own.

                  That does not mean they prefer to own right now. If you plan on moving to a new place in a few months, for example, it would kind of silly to buy only to have to buy again a few months later. You may prefer to buy, but the rational person would rent for a few months to bridge the gap, and then buy once they get to where they plan to stay.

                  And, given the current state of housing, with a high risk of it soon imploding, a lot of people would rather wait a few months, even a few years, before they buy to see what happens to the market. Again, preferring to own doesn’t imply right now.

                  The data shows a clear downward trend in price, especially in the traditionally desirable areas. If you have somewhere to rent, why would you choose to buy at this exact moment, knowing – with reasonable confidence – that a house will be cheaper in six months?

      • EnterOne@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Before I took economics in college I would have downvoted you. Price ceilings don’t solve the problem.

        • Rocket@lemmy.ca
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          Before I took economics in college I would have downvoted you.

          Now that you have studied economics, what do you think he got wrong that keeps you from pressing the “This is factual” button now?

        • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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          It’s funny, somehow I managed to understand this before any college. Because supply and demand are supposedly quite intuitive.

      • Brahm1nmam@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        So the first point is simply false, the second point is symptomatic of the third point which is simply an example of a poor policy.

        Also the second half of the third point is completely fucked off. If new construction were exempt from rent control then your ROI would be better on building units than buying units.

        • ZodiacSF1969@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Why don’t you provide proof. Who the fuck are you that we’re just gonna believe you when you say ‘this is false’ lol

          • Duxon@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            Sure, but it’s irrelevant. There’s no economical rigor behind those statements. They could be true, they could be hallucinated.

            • mindcruzer@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              I didn’t just type it into ChatGPT and copy/paste whatever it wrote without looking it over lol