Paris is the first city in France to implement some form of residential rent control. The first came in 2014 (enacted in the market in 2015), but this was later removed in 2017. The second came in 2019, and this current program remains in place… Read More
It is estimated that about 1% of the total housing stock in New York City is rent controlled (2019 figure), which is something different than rent stabilized. Generally the way the former works is that you have to have been living continuously in the home… Read More
“Your local self-inflicted housing criss ouroboros” tweeted this chart out over the weekend, showing the number of new rental suites completed in Toronto since 1900. The data is from Open Data Toronto and it does not include any condominiums. It also only includes apartment buildings… Read More
There are lots of ideas out there for how to improve the supply of new rental housing. But it is important to remember, at least here in our market, that the playing field is not level between new condominiums and new rental homes. We have… Read More
I’m not all that familiar with Stockholm’s housing market, but according to this recent article, it would appear that, like most big cities, there isn’t enough affordable housing to go around. This is despite the fact that everyone in Sweden is technically entitled to it.… Read More
A blog reader responded to yesterday’s post about rent controls (and inclusionary zoning) with an excellent point: If you’re against rent controls, then you must also be against artificially low property taxes for homeowners. And I would agree with this. One of the points I… Read More
I received an email from a reader over the weekend saying that my comments around rent control have been too critical, and that they are not doing proper justice to the challenges that renters face in today’s cities. I thought this was a fair comment… Read More
Last year, the city of Berlin agreed to a five year rent freeze for some 1.5 million flats constructed before 2014. The way it was initially approved is that it would freeze rents at mid-2019 levels and allow for only 1.3% inflationary increases. All of… Read More
I was catching up with a friend of mine over coffee this morning and he was telling me about his recent trip to Porto, Portugal. I’ve never been, but it’s fairly high up on my list of places to visit. He was telling me about… Read More
A friend of mine who lives in New York recently sent me this interesting article: “The Perverse Effects of Rent Regulation.” And he sent it to me, because he wanted me to take note of this stat: There are, effectively, two rental markets in Manhattan.… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 