Rent control laws aim to regulate the rents charged by landlords, it enables the uniformity of rents collected for an accommodation to make the rents affordable to all comers. It emphasizes the reduction of rents collected from tenants at a reasonable lower rate a little below the normal market rent obtainable.
The effect of these reflects different locations of a city or neighbourhood.
Why is Rent Control Law Important?
- Rent control law enables cheap and affordable accommodation for low-income earners
- The law helps to protect fundamental human rights which emphasizes citizens’ access to decent accommodation.
- It provides a sense of belonging to the citizens.
- It helps citizens pay rent in good time
- The poor citizens can have something to same after paying rent.
What Are the Problems of Real Estate Control?
Just as there is a positive side of rent control law, the negative aspect also exists.
- The regulation of rents discourages landlords from renting out their apartments since they are likely to have low return on investment (ROI)
- The lowly paid rents would cause landlords to pay less attention to their properties in terms of the quality of materials used in building and maintenance.
- The rent control law is likely to make one tenant remain a tenant for years considering the cheap rents paid. They will lack the motivation to build their own houses.
- The law discourages both local and foreign investors from throwing their scarce resources into real estate transactions.
- Because apartments become cheaper to rent under the rent control law, a few rich people tend to hold a larger portion of the available accommodation, hence rendering many poor people homeless.
- More people tend to share the few available spaces because developers would not want to invest in real estate considering the cost of building materials.
- The resistance of developers to build real estate would forestall the effective development and growth of the city.
- Due to the cheap rent paid tenants would always overstay in an apartment to enjoy the cheap rent.
- The reduction of investors’ and developers’ interest in the real estate sector will automatically render masons, builders and artisans unemployed for a long time.