Page 76 - AAGLA-JUNE 2022

Feature Story
76
JUNE 2022 • WWW.AAGLA.ORG
Rent Control Is Just Folly for Political Expediency
By Randy Alcorn
(Editor’s Note: While Santa Barbara is not an area of concern to the majority of our members, in his editorial, Mr. Alcorn makes many strong arguments against rent control and related regulations that each of us should take note of as we continue to
Obattle against seemingly never ending regulatory threats.)
nce upon a time I was a landlord. As a young landlord, I had little financial reserves and a modest income, so when my tenants skipped rent, I ate a lot of Ramen noodles and stretched out my bills.
There are expenses that come with owning rental properties, and if you depend on rental income to cover those expenses, you are at financial risk. That risk is compounded when a delinquent tenant becomes a squatter. Legal eviction of a tenant can take time, meanwhile those property expenses won’t wait.
One time, I happened upon and confronted a former tenant who had stiffed me. His defense was: “You’re doing OK. You have more money than me. You can afford it.” And there we have it, the rationalized moralization for larceny — wealth inequality, real or perceived. Likely, some of my tenants had more disposable income than I did, but I had
property — as long as I could afford to keep it — so that made it OK for my tenant to skip out on the rent.
The echo of this “you-have-more-than-me” rationalization can be heard in the argument made by one proponent of Santa Barbara’s proposed rent control ordinance, who contends that if rent controls result in landlords having insufficient rental income to cover their property expenses, they can borrow against their equity in the property to cover those expenses. So, it’s somehow just and moral that landlords incur debt and interest expense so that tenants can pay less rent. Nothing selfish about that, is there?
The wealth disparity rationalization ultimately underlies the various arguments made for ordained rent control. The arguments are typically flimsy, selfish and shortsighted. Flimsy because they ignore the ample evidence that rent controls fail to solve the alleged problem. Selfish because such ordinances limit the income of others to benefit those who feel entitled to what they can’t afford. And shortsighted because beyond the political expediency of pacifying a vocal entitlement crowd, rent controls have detrimental consequences.
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