High rents are a disgrace & I love anything that gives landlords a kicking but the case for rent control is not overwhelming. It has serious unintended consequences & can make things worse https://twitter.com/MorganGodfery/status/953355897668911104

2. the worst example of rent control gone bad is Stockholm. That city has half a million ppl in a 20 year wait list for rent controlled flats. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/19/why-stockholm-housing-rules-rent-control-flat

3. in Stockholm the only way to get around the 20 year wait list is through sub leases that rely on personal connections. Ppl sell sub-leases by offering to "sell" an old washing machine or table for a few thousand dollars with the flat

4. the people who suffer the most in the Stockholm system are the unconnected especially immigrants

5. A recent study of the effects of rent control in San Fransisco found that rent control benefited ppl in rent controlled homes (obviously) but reduced rental supply by 15% causing a 5% city wide rent increase http://nber.org/papers/w24181 

6. The reason rent control reduces supply is that it
1) causes ppl to stay in rent control homes that would otherwise have left
2) causes landlords to convert rental properties to owner occupied
3) disincentivizes new construction

7) The conversion of rentals to owner occupied may have increased inequality in SF as it diverts housing stock towards a higher income group http://www.newsweek.com/rent-control-income-inequality-research-777098

8. & even without the reduced supply rent control doesn't solve the problem of too few homes. It just swaps paying as a means of rationing with luck, incumbency, personal connection, & dodgy deals like $3000 washing machines

9. ultimately the problem can only be solved by a big increase in housing supply. But that's not something that can fix the problem in the short term

10. Germany has a form of rent control that seems to have limited negative effects. I suspect this is because itss combined with policies to boost supply & they mainly make rent rises more predictable without pushing them too far below market clearing (hmu if you know more)

11. which makes me wonder if there could be value in some limited & temporary form of rent control in NZ to help the short term situation while waiting for more supply

12. back to this point: many NZers wouldn't view the conversion of rentals to owner occupied as a bad thing given declining ownership rates. & the effect on new supply could be limited by excluding new builds from controls https://twitter.com/FrankMcRae/status/953382694850670592

13. This expresses the problem well. Rent control shifts the windfall from landlords to the lucky few with RC homes https://twitter.com/BenThomasNZ/status/953381768945532928

14. A final point - rent control would increase incentives to leave houses empty - something that there has been much fretting about in NZ

15. In summary: we're at the mercy of the landed gentry and rent control can't save us. Supply is the solution long term but won't help in the short. Policy should have been fixed years ago to improve supply but we were ruled by a govt firmly on the side of landlords