Moderate Rent Control

Abstract

This article finds no evidence to support the contention that moderate rent control over a three- to five-year period has led to a reduction in multifamily residential construction, a decline in maintenance, an erosion of the tax base relative to non-rent-controlled cities, or an increase in abandonments or demolitions. Those studies arguing the reverse are characterized by data rendered suspect because of nonrepresentative sampling and highly selective statistics. While all available data suggest that short-term moderate controls have no measurable negative impact, this does not imply that no such relationship exists. More research is needed to study the long-term effects of moderate controls.