Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
The voters banned banning banning banning charging too high rent. (To be clear I'm in favor of this, the best way to keep rent low is buidl buidl buidl)
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shazow
@shazow.eth
How do you solve for predictability/stability? If you buy a home, you lock in your costs for 5-30 years, why don't renters deserve some of that stability too so they can make longer term plans and set roots in their neighbourhood?
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Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
One answer: a big problem with the rent control approach is that it turns tenancy into a de-facto partial property right that is nontransferable. One fix: make it transferable. (If you take this path to its logical conclusion, you arguably eventually get Georgism) Another answer: a long-term commitment to keep housing prices low, eg. strict limits on zoning restrictions. Houston, Japan, etc seem to work quite well on that model.
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shazow
@shazow.eth
I buy that long-term increasing desirable supply is a good way to reduce prices, but it's hard to swallow that it would be reliable for limiting rent volatility in the short/medium term. For example, immigration policy alone can easily eclipse any amount of buidl almost overnight. What does transferable rent control look like? The "control" stays with the tenant rather than the unit?
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Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
Basically! You buy an NFT that lets you rent a particular place at $N/month for the next k years, and you have a highly liquid market for trading them. (And possibly government subsidies, paid for by property taxes, to give people these NFTs for free up to a certain standard of quality)
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SonOfMosiah
@sonofmosiah.eth
It’s my understanding that rent control typically restricts rental supply (mostly by disincentivizing buidl). Wouldn’t we be sacrificing long term stability for the short/medium term? ^could be wrong on my assumption
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