"The argument that rent control prevents owners from maintaining their buildings is pure bullshit. There's not a rent-control law in existence that doesn't allow annual increases sufficient for maintenance. Buildings aren't maintained because the owner sees the opportunity for dramatically increased profits if the current tenant leaves and lets the building fall to shit in an effort to drive them out."
Read that paragraph slowly and see if you can find the causal relationship between rent control and buildings not being maintained. It's easier to find than Waldo...
While true that it doesn't prevent them by force of law from maintaining the buildings, the natural profit-seeking motivations will cause a sharp increase in deferred or eliminated maintenance and improvements, as the landlord wins either way: either they save 1-2% in current expenses or they get to reset the rent to market rents if the tenant gets too sick of their shithole. Seems pretty far from "pure bullshit" to me...
Your comment has exactly the same information, that owners are not prevented but are disincentivized from maintaining their properties in a rent control environment, as the snippet of text you quoted from me. How did you manage to be a sarcastic prick about restating exactly what I said?
Anyways, from the POV of the tenant who is faced with eviction or a gradually deteriorating building, which do you think is the preferable option?
Clearly living in a deteroriating building is better than being evicted.
However, eviction is not the alternative to rent control. Being evicted is different from having your rent raised to market rates, and is different from having your lease not renewed. It may be a legal consequence of tenants deciding not to leave and/or not to pay a higher rent, but it's not like the choice we're debating is eviction vs rent control.
As to my restatement, you claimed that argument X is "pure bullshit" in a short paragraph that shows you clearly understand that argument X is much more accurate than inaccurate. If quoting that paragraph and asking you to observe that contradiction makes me a prick, so be it. (I'll admit to being sarcastic; if you want to call me a prick on the internet over it, I'll still sleep OK.)
I intended 'prevent' to mean, you know, prevent, which is pure bullshit, given that all rent control laws explicitly allow maintenance increases. I'm obviously aware that it still creates the disincentive, seeing as how I pointed it out the very next sentence.
Eviction is the alternative to rent control in the cases where rent control matters - if the tenant can't afford market rates, then they get evicted.
Or, in hopefully more common cases, they do the responsible thing and move out themselves at the end of the lease term, without going through the legal process of eviction.
Read that paragraph slowly and see if you can find the causal relationship between rent control and buildings not being maintained. It's easier to find than Waldo...
While true that it doesn't prevent them by force of law from maintaining the buildings, the natural profit-seeking motivations will cause a sharp increase in deferred or eliminated maintenance and improvements, as the landlord wins either way: either they save 1-2% in current expenses or they get to reset the rent to market rents if the tenant gets too sick of their shithole. Seems pretty far from "pure bullshit" to me...