The Big Show
You’ll want to mark your calendars for the FREE “Million Dollar Trade Show and Landlording Conference” next month where we’ll be giving away an iPad and 5-day cruises. The show will be held on Thursday, September 12th at the Los Angeles Convention Center in West Hall A, 1201 N. Figueroa!
You’ll meet vendors galore with new products and services; you can attend FREE landlording seminars and have many chances to win some great prizes. Who knows, you may even go home with a brand new iPad or a 5-day cruise for two!
FREE ADMISSION: All we ask is that you please bring a new, unwrapped child’s gift for the Union Rescue Mission’s “Christmas in September’s” toy drive.
Our main goal is that you walk away with at least one idea to help you make and/or keep more money than ever before. You’ll want to attend our FREE landlording seminars where YOU will have the chance to win one of the above prizes at EVERY seminar! Seminars titles are:
- The 7 Step Success System on How to Make and Keep Millions, (Been There, Done That), by Dan Faller, AOA’s President
- The New Laws Impacting Landlords for 2019 and Coping with Rent Control” by Dennis Block, Attorney
- How to Comply with the New 2019 and 2020 Laws Pertaining to Resident Managers” by Dale Alberstone, Esquire
- How to Write Off Almost Anything by Karla Dennis, Tax Specialist
- How to Get Three Times the Market Rent Without Section 8 by Nick Sidoti, “Dr. Cash Flow”
- Discover How to Make 16% Interest With Tax Liens by Mac Boyter, Tax Lien Specialist
- Is it Time to Exit California Real Estate? by Bruce Norris of the Norris Group
- Discover How to Make Money in the Stock Market by Chris Briggs
- Strategies on Tax Reduction, Lawsuit Protection & Estate Planning by Dale West, Asset Protection Specialist
- Know Your Property Rights – Seizures and Due Process Violations, by Paul Beard, Attorney
Be sure to check out the times of each of our FREE LANDLORDING SEMINARS listed on the back cover and in next month’s issue. It is going to be AOA “Show Time” and you’ll need and want to be there. Mark your calendars for Thursday, September 12th. See you at the big show!
California Rent Control: Lawmakers Have Not Learned Their Lesson!
The below article was written by Ethan Blevins, Attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation.
Economist Thomas Sowell once quipped, “The first lesson of economics is scarcity” and “the first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”
With California’s recent flirtation with statewide rent control, it seems Golden State lawmakers are treating Sowell’s warning as a game plan. The results will be predictable: less affordable housing for all.
With the exception of lawmakers and a small crew of activists, almost everyone knows that rent control has never worked. All economists know it. And it seems most Californians know it, given that the state’s voters thoroughly trounced an initiative last November that would have repealed a 1995 law that limits local jurisdictions’ ability to impose rent control.
Yet the rent control myth persists. Oregon lawmakers have manifested their faith with a new statewide rent control regime, and California lawmakers are now toying with the idea.
California’s rent control bill, AB 1482, would impose a 5 percent cap (later amended to 7 percent) on rent increases beyond the percentage of regional inflation. That’s stricter than Oregon’s recent law, which imposed a 7 percent cap, although last month, California lawmakers offered a twig-sized olive branch by exempting newer rentals.
Unfortunately, however they may tinker with the specifics, the bill won’t overcome its most fundamental flaw: ignoring the aforementioned first lesson of economics.
When Politicians Shove Down Prices, a Shortage Results
A lower price means more people want the good while fewer people produce it. So, rent control means more demand for housing and less housing supply.
Landlords will either bow out of the market, always max out on the rent increases available to them, or ratchet up the rent immediately when a new lease begins.
Meanwhile, inflated prices will spill out into the uncontrolled market, worsening the crunch.
California Rent Control Will Mean Slower Development of New Multifamily Housing
California rent control will cause apartment investment trusts to underperform, and investment dollars that may have gone toward new construction, in anticipation of solid returns, will go elsewhere. As various states have flirted with rent control in recent months, investors already have begun to flinch. This is an ominous sign, since multifamily housing is an essential tool in easing a housing crisis.
California’s bill not only will cause a housing shortage, it also will degrade the quality of the existing housing stock. Rent control leaves landlords with little incentive to upgrade and improve their property. Plus, landlords operate at a narrow margin. Rent controls choke that margin even more, leading landlords to forego maintenance and improvements. The legacy of rent control is a crumbling housing stock, both figuratively and literally.
The bill’s recent amendment to exempt newer housing would do little to alleviate the problem. That amendment is likely designed to maintain incentives to build affordable housing. But the rent control measure will make new housing even pricier, whether or not it’s in the grip of rent control. After all, when you squeeze prices, they’ll inflate in the uncontrolled market.
Who Does Rent Control Help?
And who does rent control help, anyway? It helps people who can fight their way into a price-controlled unit and stay put. In most cases, those people are not the poorest among us, who are often left to struggle in the uncontrolled market while the beneficiaries of the rent control regime slide along in comfortable, affordable housing that’s not subject to market prices.
There are some sad ironies behind California’s wrongheaded rent control push. Some months ago, California Gov. Gavin Newsom took an encouraging step toward the right affordable housing solution: encourage new construction.
Newsom urged local communities to remove barriers to more housing construction, threatening to strip local jurisdictions of transportation funding if they didn’t comply with a state housing quota. However, late last month Newsom indicated that he’d sign a rent control bill if it reached his desk. He can’t have it both ways — his signature on a rent control bill will offset any good his construction initiative might do.
The other irony is California’s steady refusal to listen to the advice of its own experts. In 2015, the Legislative Analyst’s Office released a study about why California has become so unlivable. Their diagnosis was simple: over regulation of real estate. Their prescription was obvious enough: build more housing. But they were speaking the language of the first lesson of economics — and we know what the first lesson of politics says about that.
[AOA Thoughts: And that “first political lesson” mentioned above says that a politician can buy votes for free …with our property!
How many politicians who vote for regulating apartments would you guess have ever supplied housing for others with their own hard earned money and/or have even taken a basic course in Economics 101? Most do not understand that first economic lesson of “scarcity”, which is the simple idea of “supply and demand”. They do not understand that when they put a lid on prices, that supply decreases because the suppliers have less incentive. They think exempting new construction solves the problem – WRONG! It helps, but is not the solution. Lower the price on any item and more people want to buy it – you increase the demand. Why buy a house when you can stay in a rent controlled apartment and receive “tenant welfare” from the property owner?
Decrease incentives to build with regulations; then use political force to keep the prices low which increases demand for apartments, and what do you have? A HOUSING CRISIS!
Please, please make a copy of this article or download it at www.aoausa.com and click on “Magazine”. Try to educate every politician and friend you know. Mail or email a copy to everyone. Educate the world about how to solve a housing crisis and promote our old American economic system of free enterprise!]
Ethan Blevins is an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation, which litigates nationwide to achieve court victories enforcing the Constitution’s guarantee of individual liberty. Follow him on Twitter @ethanwb. Founded in 1973, PLF litigates cases nationwide to vindicate the rights fundamental to a free society. With nine consecutive U.S. Supreme Court victories and counting, PLF fights on the front lines, ensuring individual liberty is secure. Donor-supported Pacific Legal Foundation (www.pacificlegal.org) is the leading watchdog organization that litigates for limited government, property rights, individual rights, and free enterprise, in courts nationwide. PLF represents all clients free of charge. For more information, visit www.pacificlegal.org, call (916) 419-7111 or write PLF at 930 G. Street, Sacramento, CA 95814.