In Virginia, some legislators want to give local governments the ability to impose cumbersome rent controls on housing. That’s a mistake. Rent control killed multifamily housing construction in Maryland’s most populous county. Getting rid of rent control greatly expanded the amount of rental housing in Argentina, without raising rents (one of the many reasons that occurred is that people were more willing to rent out rooms if they didn’t have to worry about being prevented by rent control from raising rents in the future to cover rising costs, such as the need to renovate or pay rising utility or mortgage bills). Indeed, average rents actually fell in inflation-adjusted terms in Argentina after the end of rent control. Around 93% of economists say rent control is bad, because it reduces the quantity and quality of housing.
Legislators have introduced two bills targeting so-called “rent gouging”, defining rent increases of over 3% as rent gouging. That’s a weird, unreasonable definition of rent gouging, because even pro-tenant rent-control boards sometimes allow rent increases bigger than 3%, and expenses often rise faster than 3%. Inflation was about 7% in 2021 and 2022, far above 3%. But HB278 and SB355 would authorize local “rent-gouging” ordinances, under which a landlord “cannot increase the rent by more than the locality’s calculated allowance, not to exceed three percent.” Rent levels could be restricted even further under such an ordinance, because the permitted increase must be “no more than three percent,” but could be restricted to less than three percent (such as one percent). 28 members of the House of Delegates are sponsors of HB278, all of them progressive Democrats.
Read Full Article: https://libertyunyielding.com/2026/01/20/rent-control-bills-proposed-in-virginia-legislature-even-though-economists-think-rent-control-is-dumb/
