Why don't more apartments get built when markets rents rise? Even without rent controls, there are powerful financial incentives that favour building condominiums (where presales generate returns on investments immediately) over rental apartments (where rental income tickles in slowly over decades). Condos have other advantages -- property taxes [...]
The Ontario government changed rent controls with the aim of protecting existing tenants. But the policy change allows landlords to raise rents for new tenants. The unintended consequence provides landlords with incentives to try and get existing tenants to move. This may lead to reduced maintenance, ignoring tenant rights, [...]
Many cities, including Seattle, have rising housing and rental prices because of demand from hi-tech workers who earn good salaries and want to live in downtown neighbourhoods. This op-ed suggests that we look at the higher housing prices as a negative externality caused by the tech businesses. Accordingly, the [...]
In 2017, the Liberal Government in Ontario decided to expand rent controls beyond apartments built before 1993 to cover all apartment buildings. The housing industry objected, and argued that expanded rent controls would discourage new apartment construction by reducing profitability. All other things equal, that is a [...]
