A LETTER FROM STOCKHOLM ON RENT CONTROL Posted by Roger Valdez, Smart Growth Seattle, July 20, 2015. [Scary!]
Berlin becomes first German city to make rent cap a reality By Ruby Bussell, The Guardian, June 1, 2015. [Landlords in Berlin will be barred from increasing rents by more than 10% above the local average. Such controls were already in place for existing tenants but have now been extended to new contracts.]
Princess Fights Leaks and an Eviction Notice in Manhattan By Matt A. V. Chaban, The New York Times, August 4, 2014. [An Afghan princess rents a two-bedroom apartment on 73rd Street and Lexington Avenue for the controlled rent of $390 per month.]
A Fight Over the Fate of a Rent-Stabilized Building By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS, The New York Times, Published: July 29, 2013. [The structure, damaged by time and Hurricane Sandy, has been declared unsafe, and owners and tenants disagree on whether it is worth saving. There is perhaps nothing in New York City simultaneously so revered and so reviled as rent-stabilized apartments — and little else so worth a fight. Rent-stabilized apartments may be the holy grail for tenants, but for property owners they are a scourge. They exact enormous restrictions on what an owner can do with a building, and a huge toll on the value owners can wring from it. Many opponents also say that rent stabilization and rent control make rents more expensive for those who have to pay market rate.]
The Perverse Effects of Rent Regulation By ADAM DAVIDSON, The New York Times, Published: July 23, 2013. [What would happen if Manhattan had a free market for rental apartments?]
An Apartment for $94.18? You'll Have to Go to Court By MICHAEL BRICK, The New York Times, June 6, 2006. [Under New York's rent control laws, the rent on an apartment in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, for a tenant who moved into the apartment in 1965 was raised to $80.72 a month in June 1970 and then to $94.18 in March 1983.]
Tenants in Mumbai Will Endure a Lot For an $8.50 Flat: Why Sojatwala Family Stayed In Rent-Controlled Digs After a Building Collapse, By ERIC BELLMAN, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, June 5, 2006. [Here's a tale of rent control from Mumbai, a city in India. The rent on an apartment was set at $8.50 per month in 1940 and and it remains at that level by law. No wonder the landlord does not do any repairs. And no wonder the tenants in the part of the building that has not collapsed yet cling desperately to their apartments even though the building has been declared unsafe -- not that its lack of safety was ever in doubt! -- and its water and electricity has been disconnected.]
Delusions of the Rich and Rent-Controlled, By JOHN TIERNEY, The New York Times, June 3, 2006. [Nora Ephron, a best-selling author and the director of many successful movies such as "Sleepless in Seattle", lived for many years in an eight-room apartment for $1,500 a month at the Apthorp, the palatial building at Broadway and West 79th Street. This illustrates the bizarre nature of rent control laws that, while intended to help the poor, end up subsidizing the superrich. And how did Ms. Ephron get such a good deal? She gave the apartment's previous owner a $24,000 bribe. This too is a typical and entirely predictable consequence of rent control.]
Bit by Bit, Government Eases Its Grip on Rents in New York By DAVID W. CHEN, The New York Times, November 19, 2003.
Learning From China By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, The New York Times, July 1, 2003.
Albany Extends Landlord Power Over Rent Curbs By WINNIE HU with DAVID W. CHEN, The New York Times, June 21, 2003.
When Rent Control Just Vanishes By DAVID W. CHEN, The New York Times, June 15, 2003.
The great Manhattan rip-off, The Economist, Jun 5th 2003. [Rent controls, New York's particular bane, are poised to receive yet another unwelcome extension]
Rent Control: New York's Self-Destruction, By ROBERT L. BARTLEY, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, May 19, 2003.