Why do people work lousy jobs? It just has to be a smidgen better than doing nothing for a landlord to rent out there apartment. And the microeconomic situation of taxes and who-knows-what can cause strange things to happen. But if pushed far enough they'd start losing money and stop renting out apartments. Or you'd get some new rental stock but less than a freer market would provide.
And no-one is getting tricked here, it seems pretty obvious what is going on.
> The story here isn't "rent stabilization is bad", it's "landlords are having a hissy fit that they can't exploit their tenants as much as before, so they're keeping apartments off the market on the off chance they win a court case"
What do you think the symptoms would be if rent stabilisation was bad?
> What do you think the symptoms would be if rent stabilisation was bad?
Bad for whom? Tenants? Landlords?
If landlords of rent stabilized buildings were declaring bankruptcy and the city had to take over and operate the buildings, that would be a clear sign that the economics of rent stabilization made it impossible for the free market to work.
Except that hasn’t happened, in fact, being a landlord is still so lucrative that they can afford to keep units off the market in the event of the small chance that the laws get changed in the next year.
I can guarantee you that once the court case is settled, those units will gradually come back on the market and everything will go back to the way it was.
And no-one is getting tricked here, it seems pretty obvious what is going on.
> The story here isn't "rent stabilization is bad", it's "landlords are having a hissy fit that they can't exploit their tenants as much as before, so they're keeping apartments off the market on the off chance they win a court case"
What do you think the symptoms would be if rent stabilisation was bad?