☆ Insight: Rent control suffocates landlords, hurting the housing market, disempowering tenants

A recent study out of Northwestern University found that SF's rent control policies have managed to release a wave of, yes, more frequent evictions. Progressives are gawking and puzzling through the irony, but Jennifer Liu—Business and Housing Network's (BAHN) president—isn't all that shocked. Liu's Opp Now exclusive perspective below on why CA's restrictive housing laws harm landlords and tenants alike.

California already goes too far to sacrifice landlords in the name of defending tenants. On the surface, in the short term, it seems that tenants are helped through our legal “protections.” But in the long term, such policies are very hurtful for California's housing market, which impacts tenants themselves.

If we take eviction moratoriums, for example, a tenant doesn't have to pay rent for years. The landlord can't get their land back or evict the tenant; they've lost that right. I've experienced that firsthand as a property owner, during Covid, when my tenant didn't pay me rent for over three years. But I wasn't allowed to show them out. It's terrible. Laws like this ultimately hurt the average tenant because local property owners end up losing money and even going out of business, which further decreases the housing supply and causes higher rents.

The reason why severe rent control policies hurt tenants in the long run is because when landlords are squeezed too hard, they find it’s so hard to do rental business that they eventually give up and exit the rental market. With fewer people willing to buy properties for rental purposes, developers have no motivation to build more housing, causing the reduction of housing inventory. As you know, the market is about supply and demand. When supply is less, prices go up. Tenants will find it harder and more expensive to find houses for rent. This hurts tenants.

Our Constitution's Fifth Amendment protects our right to property. It also says that our property can't be repossessed by the government for public use without “just compensation.” Basically, the eviction moratorium, rent control, etc. rob property owners of their property rights. Instead of constraining these people, we should be investing in the housing market.