The San Jose study was interesting. The city has one of the looser implementations of rent control, which I think is about right--nobody can deny that an extremely harsh rent control statute might damage the housing market. What we actually have seems like a pretty balanced approach to regulation for the public good.

The study shows that moderate rent control not only doesn't interfere with the free market, it may lull some renters into just assuming that they're getting a good deal when they're not, to the profit of landlords. This got me to wondering whether I should start shopping around:

A comparison of monthly contract rents for 1990 and 2000 (see Appendix A-13) shows that rents for Rent-Controlled Units actual rose significantly more than for Exempt Multifamily Units, counter to what one might expect. In 1990, the median monthly contract rent for Rent-Controlled Units was $512, which was 82 percent of the median monthly contract rent for Exempt Multifamily Units, but this ratio rose to 90 percent in 2000. Over the decade, the median contract rent for Rent-Controlled Units had risen 54 percent to $900, while the median contract rent for Exempt Multifamily Units had risen only 40 percent to $1,000.

One possible explanation, besides complacency, may be that public assistance is paying for some percentage of those rents, and the renters don't notice and the bureaucrats don't care.

I'll bet mentioning public assistance and bureaucrats in the same breath spiked your blood pressure, eh? Oh well...housing is one area where regulation is entirely justified, because we've seen in the past how a perfectly free housing market leaves an unacceptable number of people homeless. The basic survival needs of people take precedence over property rights and the accumulation of wealth, so sue me for felony compassion in the first degree.