Yah you’re right, all these poor, hard-working Landlords who serve the people must be protected at all costs, they do so much for the average renter, we can’t dare touch their clockwork perfect system that SOOOO many people love.
Another way of looking at this is landlords won’t be able to fancy up units and jack up prices which push out low income renters. Also, if landlords can’t make a profit, they will sell which will allow more people to buy rather than be forced to rent. This does decrease the number of rental units in the future which could drive up prices, but it could be combined with a plan to renovate office spaces into apartments to counteract this.
We want landlords to do this to serve the renters that want to pay more. Office spaces will be renovated to make apartments when rents are high enough to pay for this expense. You don’t need a plan when market forces cause people to make sound business decisions.
That assumes market forces are doing what you want. There are always levers that can encourage the market to move where you want it to go. For example raising property taxes but giving a 10 year tax break to converted office spaces (and changes to zoning of course).
That makes markets less efficient in the long run. It might cost less in rent, but your office is far away and you pay for it in commute time. You didn’t even know that in a parallel universe your company moved to a better office space that’s in your city
Efficiency and resilience are opposing forces. Think of the spare tire on a car. Is it efficient to carry around a fifth wheel all the time? No. But it is resilient because it will make it possible to quickly recover from a disruption (i.e. a flat tire).
The housing system needs a certain degree of resilience or people end up homeless. If that costs landlords money, too damn bad. It’s the job of government to force them.
Rent freezes make landlords only do the bare minimum maintenance required by the law since they can’t increase rents when doing any remodelling.
Yah you’re right, all these poor, hard-working Landlords who serve the people must be protected at all costs, they do so much for the average renter, we can’t dare touch their clockwork perfect system that SOOOO many people love.
Jesus christ, grow a clue.
Another way of looking at this is landlords won’t be able to fancy up units and jack up prices which push out low income renters. Also, if landlords can’t make a profit, they will sell which will allow more people to buy rather than be forced to rent. This does decrease the number of rental units in the future which could drive up prices, but it could be combined with a plan to renovate office spaces into apartments to counteract this.
We want landlords to do this to serve the renters that want to pay more. Office spaces will be renovated to make apartments when rents are high enough to pay for this expense. You don’t need a plan when market forces cause people to make sound business decisions.
The only thing you need to fix is zoning
That assumes market forces are doing what you want. There are always levers that can encourage the market to move where you want it to go. For example raising property taxes but giving a 10 year tax break to converted office spaces (and changes to zoning of course).
That makes markets less efficient in the long run. It might cost less in rent, but your office is far away and you pay for it in commute time. You didn’t even know that in a parallel universe your company moved to a better office space that’s in your city
Efficiency and resilience are opposing forces. Think of the spare tire on a car. Is it efficient to carry around a fifth wheel all the time? No. But it is resilient because it will make it possible to quickly recover from a disruption (i.e. a flat tire).
The housing system needs a certain degree of resilience or people end up homeless. If that costs landlords money, too damn bad. It’s the job of government to force them.