“Rent control makes things worse”

Carmel Pine Cone—May 9, 2025

California’s housing crisis is not due to a lack of regulation, but rather a surplus of it. The recent shelving of AB 1157 — a bill that would have expanded California’s rent control laws — is not just a legislative victory for property owners and housing advocates. It is a reprieve for the very renters it claimed to protect.

Supporters of rent caps argue they shield tenants from skyrocketing prices, but the evidence points to a more troubling truth: rent control reduces housing supply, discourages investment, and deepens the affordability crisis.

AB 1157 proposed cutting allowable rent increases to 2 percent plus inflation, removing exemptions for single-family homes, condos, and accessory dwelling units, and eliminating the sunset clause of existing law. While that may sound like a win for tenants, these policies carry severe consequences. When property owners can’t keep up with rising maintenance costs, property taxes, or inflation, they withdraw from the market. Developers hesitate to build new housing in markets with capped returns. In short, fewer units are built, and existing ones deteriorate.

This isn’t theoretical. According to testimony from the California Apartment Association, multi-family housing permits declined sharply following the rent control debate over Proposition 33. And housing advocates like California YIMBY warned that extending caps to ADUs—a few growing housing segments—would choke off one of California’s last lifelines for organic growth

Rent control doesn’t just punish large developers, it crushes the small, independent property owner who may be renting out a single unit to help pay their mortgage. These are the people still reeling from Covid-era rent losses — and they are the ones who will sell, convert, or pull out of the market altogether under tighter restrictions.

If we want affordable housing, we must build more housing. That means encouraging investment, streamlining approvals, and protecting property rights—not strangling supply with political quick fixes that ultimately hurt renters the most.

Rent control is not a housing solution. It’s a housing deterrent.

Rosemarie Barnard, Prunedale