It also leads to fewer people being able to move. Have a kid and your one bedroom apartment is too small, but don't have enough cash to buy a bigger place? Unfortunately, you're going to have to move out of Berlin, because two- and three-bedrooms are being sold when their tenants move out, so there's no supply available for you to move into.

You're definitely one of the people this type of policy helps, but you're benefitting at the direct expense of less affluent people who want to move into bigger apartments and who want to move into your city from outside of it.

That's fine if it's what they intend with these policies, but they're almost always championed as helping poorer people, when that's too overbroad to be accurate, because they actually only help poorer people who are currently renters and don't need to move (and bear in mind they also help rich people who are currently renters and don't seem to move, which hardly seems to be the goal).

The proposed rent control in Berlin is sticky, in that the rentier cannot increase rent between renters beyond a certain amount.

The most likely scenario is that they will find a place to move into in a year or so, which will fit their family planning.

Otherwise, if they have enough for a modest downpayment as the collapse of the renting market leads to increased supply in bought housing, they can also buy a condo.

If even that doesn't happen, they can also go into public housing.

I live in a rent controlled city. The scenario you are describing doesn't happen. When I was a kid, we moved 7 times. All we had to do was look for housing a few months in advance, and move as our lease was up.

I've also lived in rent controlled cities (like SF), and my experience runs counter to yours. Your experience is an anecdote, not data.

I get the impression you didn't actually read the article. It points out very clearly that when apartments go vacant in Berlin, they're being sold, not re-rented. If that's what happens when a renter leaves, then there's no stock for new renters to move into.

And just throwing in public housing as though it's a magical solution is wildly unrealistic, especially when you're dealing with large numbers of people.

I'm sure you live somewhere nice, but it's not reflective of the world.

If the apartments are being sold, then they must find buyers. If there is no way to rent them, then it's not profitable to hold on to them, and their value decreases. At that point, people can simply buy apartments, and everyone is happy.

My experience is typical and backed by data. In my city, roughly 25% of the renting population moves every year.

> you're benefitting at the direct expense of less affluent people who want to move into bigger apartments

Aren't you forgetting about the even less affluent people who wouldn't be able to afford a bigger apartment even at the same price per area as their current apartment and who'd be priced out of the market (a.k.a. forced to move out) by rising rents?

> and who want to move into your city from outside of it

I think not being able to move to your city of choice is less bad than being forced to leave it. The only way someone can move to Berlin without pushing others out is if the supply increases, which the rising prices for new apartments certainly incentivize. So the policy endures that the additional construction required to accommodate newcomers is paid for by them, rather than by all citizens.

"Aren't you forgetting about the even less affluent people who wouldn't be able to afford a bigger apartment even at the same price per area as their current apartment and who'd be priced out of the market (a.k.a. forced to move out) by rising rents?"

What? No... the whole point is the answer is supply, not rent control. Supply keeps prices down, rent control pushes prices up (for those units that hit the market, which are the only ones that matter in this case). Having a lot of supply on the market is what those people need, and rent control is what drives them out.

"I think not being able to move to your city of choice is less bad than being forced to leave it."

Okay, that's a fair preference, but the problem is it's never what anyone says they're trying to achieve when they enact rent control. The reasoning is always to help people who aren't well off financially, not to keep outsiders out of your city. If xenophobia is the goal, then by all means rent control away.

> the answer is supply, not rent control. Supply keeps prices down

Supply requires construction, which takes time, which limits the speed at which supply can be created. Meanwhile, demand has been growing much faster. So far, supply has not succeeded at keeping prices down, while rent control has.

> rent control pushes prices up (for those units that hit the market, which are the only ones that matter in this case)

First of all, units that hit the market are not the only ones that matter. There are already people living in those apartments who don't want them to hit the market because they'd like to continue living there, thankyouverymuch.

Secondly, the Bloomberg article shows that rent in rent-controlled apartments fell and the price for apartments that are sold, not rented, fell as well. The price increase is concentrated in the unregulated market for new construction, where it at least serves the useful purpose of incentivizing increasing supply, although still not quickly enough.

> Having a lot of supply on the market is what those people need, and rent control is what drives them out.

What? No... their landlords raising the rent to a level they can't afford is what drives them out, and rent control prevents that.

> The reasoning is always to help people who aren't well off financially, not to keep outsiders out of your city.

The reasoning is that poor people shouldn't get evicted from their apartments just because someone else is willing to pay more, and if that limits the ability of some outsiders to move there, that's an acceptable tradeoff. If those outsiders are willing to provide for their own supply by paying for the construction of new housing, they're very much welcome. I wouldn't call that xenophobia.

The thing I'm curious about is the impact of rent controls on traffic and commute times. This is a big deadweight loss of rent control, I think - people will often move because where they work changed, so if person A gets a job in person B's neighborhood and vice versa, the efficient outcome is for them to swap apartments rather than have opposite commutes. Rent control effectively locks people into their current apartment, which means some combination of longer commutes and taking worse jobs in lieu of an excessive commute that cannot be ameliorated by moving.