"The court ruled on Thursday that the Berlin government had overstepped its powers in introducing the law, as federal law governing rents was already in place."
this does not support an argument against rent control in general, but only against outright freezing rents in place which is what this law tried to do.
the stories about landlords getting around the rent limit by charging extra for furniture are also not helping the argument because the law covered that too, so they were effectively breaking the law. the only argument that is valid is the fact that less units were available for rent, showing that this particular law didn't work. but again, this does not prove that rent-control on general is bad.
german rent-control generally means that rent may not be charged higher than about 20% of the average rent in an area. this means that rents are still somewhat flexible and they can rise, but not excessively so.
Like honestly, rent control is just beyond dumb. There are like 1000 ways that actually solve the problem - but unfortunately they require cities and bureaucrats to work instead of just passing a law. Supply and demand. If it takes LONGER to get a building permit that to actually build a housing complex… When cities are not planning ahead creating new space (argh, infrastructure, public transportation, this sounds like work…
actually i disagree that simply allowing to build enough property will work. businesses tend to charge as much as they can, and if we want actual competition in rent prices, then the supply would have to vastly exceed the demand and not just meet it. with all the best intentions, that is not going to happen, and i don't think it is desirable either.
excessive prices need to be prevented either way.
> and if we want actual competition in rent prices, then the supply would have to vastly exceed the demand and not just meet it.
So, having less than 1% of the housing stock go to AirBnB supposedly makes cities unaffordable but increasing the supply of housing will not have the opposite effect until supply greatly exceeds demand? Why?
