Rent freeze - when does it end?

[Magpie]

Why is it you think that removing rent controls will help the people having their rent controlled? I think the politicians would prefer for various reasons that I and people like me are not made homeless when our rents suddenly rise to levels we can't afford. What is it that you think we don't realise?

 

[Leo]

Why is it you think that removing rent controls will help the people having their rent controlled?

The current system encourages all landlords in RPZs to increase rent by 4% pa, and actually punishes those who don't. How is that good for tenants?

 

[Sarenco]

Paul Krugman (nobel prize winning economist) on rent controls:-

"The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and -- among economists, anyway -- one of the least controversial. In 1992 a poll of the American Economic Association found 93 percent of its members agreeing that ''a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing.'' Almost every freshman-level textbook contains a case study on rent control, using its known adverse side effects to illustrate the principles of supply and demand. Sky-high rents on uncontrolled apartments, because desperate renters have nowhere to go -- and the absence of new apartment construction, despite those high rents, because landlords fear that controls will be extended? Predictable. Bitter relations between tenants and landlords, with an arms race between ever-more ingenious strategies to force tenants out -- what yesterday's article oddly described as ''free-market horror stories'' -- and constantly proliferating regulations designed to block those strategies? Predictable."

 

[Magpie]

The current system encourages all landlords in RPZs to increase rent by 4% pa, and actually punishes those who don't. How is that good for tenants?

Rents go up with or without controls. This way they can only go up 4% every two years instead of 10, 20, 50% whenever the landlord likes. Please explain how it is good for tenants to have their rent go up 20% instead of 4%?

 

[Leo]

Rents go up with or without controls. This way they can only go up 4% every two years instead of 10, 20, 50% whenever the landlord likes. Please explain how it is good for tenants to have their rent go up 20% instead of 4%?

No, it's 4%pa, and a landlord who doesn't increase their rent by the maximum allowed each time the review comes around is being punished by effectively devaluing their property.

What evidence have you of individual properties upping their rents by 10, 20 or 50% per annum prior to the introduction of this legislation? In an open market, if market rate rents could rise by 10%pa, we'd have no shortage of rental units on the market.

What evidence is there of the RPZ legislation having any positive effect on the market? How do rent controls encourage an increase in supply?

 

[Magpie]

What evidence have you of individual properties upping their rents by 10, 20 or 50% per annum prior to the introduction of this legislation? In an open market, if market rate rents could rise by 10%pa, we'd have no shortage of rental units on the market.

What evidence is there of the RPZ legislation having any positive effect on the market? How do rent controls encourage an increase in supply?

The evidence I have is my climbing rent before the RPZ! And everyone elses.

Tenants don't care much about a positive effect on the market when they are faced with rent increases that they can't afford. Are you seriously suggesting that keeping rents down is bad for the people paying those rents? And that rents increasing is somehow good for them? Or is your viewpoint more about what is good for landlords?

 

[PaxmanK]

I'll just leave this here.

https://youtu.be/JZygWICdi4U

This is what's happening in Ireland now.
Only people in properties where the rent is stuck below market rate are winning now. And when their landlord stops fixing things and starts cutting costs or getting out of the market they will be losing too.

 

[llgon]

The evidence I have is my climbing rent before the RPZ! And everyone elses.

You are clearly aware from earlier in the thread that it's because of the introduction of RPZs that your rent rose. You are arguing against your own point here.

 

[Magpie]

I'm actually not. I've been renting for a long time, and rents rose long before the intro of the RPZ (obviously). That they climbed more at that intro was due to the mishandling of the scheme and the greed of landlords looking to make ever more profit.

I'm still waiting to hear why uncontrolled rent rises are so good for tenants.

 

[PaxmanK]

I'm actually not. I've been renting for a long time, and rents rose long before the intro of the RPZ (obviously). That they climbed more at that intro was due to the mishandling of the scheme and the greed of landlords looking to make ever more profit.

I'm still waiting to hear why uncontrolled rent rises are so good for tenants.

You are probably.not too far away from finding out first hand yourself. But in the meantime.

Check out the link I sent you for a quick lesson.
Then you can look up various studies on it if you want to go deeper.

 

[Leo]

The evidence I have is my climbing rent before the RPZ! And everyone elses.

So over an extended period, your rent increased by 10% or more pa prior to the introduction of this legislation? Note, even if it did, one anecdotal case does not constitute evidence.

Tenants don't care much about a positive effect on the market when they are faced with rent increases that they can't afford.

They really should, as positive effects would include a healthy supply of rental units resulting in natural competition on pricing.

Are you seriously suggesting that keeping rents down is bad for the people paying those rents? And that rents increasing is somehow good for them? Or is your viewpoint more about what is good for landlords?

Where did I suggest that? If you read it properly, my point is that legislation that encourages landlords to increase rents by 4%pa, or suffer otherwise, can not do any good for tenants.

 

[Purple]

The current system encourages all landlords in RPZs to increase rent by 4% pa, and actually punishes those who don't. How is that good for tenants?

My landlord reduced my rent by €100 per month 4 years ago and hasn't increased it since.

 

[Purple]

They really should, as positive effects would include a healthy supply of rental units resulting in natural competition on pricing.

That presupposes a functioning construction sector. Ours is more concerned with political lobbying than driving efficiency within its own sector and input costs dominated by taxes, levies and charges as well as a grossly inefficient planning and approvals process.

 

[Leo]

That presupposes a functioning construction sector. Ours is more concerned with political lobbying than driving efficiency within its own sector and input costs dominated by taxes, levies and charges as well as a grossly inefficient planning and approvals process.

Absolutely, but if Magpie;s suggestion of 10+% rent rises across the board was anything close to a reality, then even our broken model would be delivering more units due to the demand that would create.

 

[Magpie]

It is absolutely a reality, which anyone long term renting knows. Where I live rents have climbed from 850+ to 1750+ for the same properties in less than six years.

 

[Thirsty]

And in that same time period, in the same catchment, how has the number of rentals changed?

Rental costs are very sensitive to demand & supply; when the number of available properties drops, the rent increases.

 

[PaxmanK]

interesting Daft rental report out today.
IMO the cause is rent controls.
But I bet there will be more rent bowing to the populist view. Sure Murphy only has to last another few months. He can wreck the sector some more before he heads off to another position and washes his hands. Just like Coveny did.
People should not forget that those two are the pricemary cause of their woes.

 

[Magpie]

And in that same time period, in the same catchment, how has the number of rentals changed?


Rental costs are very sensitive to demand & supply; when the number of available properties drops, the rent increases.

In the area I am speaking about, there are many more rentals now than there were then. Rent increases are not down to lowering of supply.

 

[Magpie]

I think many of you are looking at it from the LL/societal point of view and don't appreciate the needs or perspective of people renting.

 

[PaxmanK]

Many landlords have rented before so are familiar with both sides of the equation. What many people lack is an understanding of what a landlord must get out of it to make it viable. That then trickles on down through supply in many ways.