There are significant differences between owner-occupied housing and rental housing. That’s a good thing! The separate arrangements provide a different set of benefits that fit the differing needs of consumers.

Rental housing is an excellent option for people without the means to cover the upfront costs of buying a house or at who stage of their life where they might be moving frequently.

So long as rent control binds rent growth below market levels, it will reduce the supply and/or quality of rental housing. If it’s sufficiently strict, we can expect it to reduce the net housing supply by killing off new construction.

Rent control proponents think some loss of quality and/or new supply is worth the stability that rent control provides to incumbent tenants. They should at least be honest about the tradeoffs they’re foisting on property owners and people looking for a place to live.

[The city of St. Paul, MN was the latest to learn this lesson. As I was leaving the Twin Cities, they implemented a rent-control law that prompted the cancellation of significant new multi-family residential projects, which the law specifically targeted. The last I heard, the city was looking for ways to create loopholes for those developers to keep them from pulling out altogether. — Ed]