California rent controls will make housing even more scarce

NY Times:

California Approves Statewide Rent Control to Ease Housing Crisis

The measure, affecting millions of tenants, is the biggest step in a nationwide surge of initiatives to address rising costs and homelessness.

The only rational way to lower the cost of housing is to increase the supply.  This is another step by California to regulate the housing market that will decrease the supply.  The state already has made too many restrictions on where housing could be built and has taken other steps to increase the cost of housing with ridiculous requirements for alternative energy.  What they are doing will likely increase homelessness as the supply get further restricted. 

There is a reason that housing is more affordable in Texas.  There are fewer restrictions on building and fewer restrictions on land development.  That has led to beautiful homes on beautiful subdivisions in major cities like Houston and the Dallas suburbs.  In many cases, the price of these homes is a fraction of what they would cost in California.

The regulation is an example of how liberals opt for control freak regulations instead of trusting the free market and in the process, they make things worse.  Their current regulations have led to a lot of old houses on tiny lots that are overpriced.

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