The proposal is an attempt to seize momentum on one of the campaign’s top issues — the housing crisis — and could affect nearly one million homes, or about 40 percent of the city’s rental market.
It’s also part of a continuing attack on the front-runner in the race, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, who pays $2,300 a month for a rent-stabilized one-bedroom apartment in Astoria, Queens.
Unfortunately your example is how it should work in an idealized world:
"Let’s take an obviously fictitious example of a 2 apartment building that needs $1000 to break even for taxes, mortgage/loan, common utilities, etc.
If one apartment is rent controlled and you’re only allowed to rent it at $250, then the other must get rented at $750 in order for you to just break even on the property.
This would be their logic. And it’s not “bad” logic.
When without rent control you’d see closer to $500 split evenly between both units."
Without rent control, how it actually works isn’t based on what is needed to break even, it’s “What the market will bear”, i.e. “Whatever I can get away with.”
So instead of a $500/$500 split, the landlord now lists both apartments at $2,000. If they successfully rent both, they pocket the difference.
If they rent neither in a reasonable time, they lower the rent until they get the absolute most the market will bear. Maybe it’s $2,000/$1,700. Maybe it’s $1,000/$1,000. It will never be the break even point, because real estate investors aren’t interested in breaking even.
Sure, I will admit very readily that people abuse it…
But when you punish the idealized case… don’t be mad when only the abusive people are left. Rent control doesn’t fix the abusers and punishes the non-abusive owners as well.
See, I think that’s the inherent problem. The idealized case isn’t the norm.
This is the norm:
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-realpage-algorithmic-pricing-scheme-harms-millions-american-renters
Which means in our world, rent control is mandatory. Yeah, it sucks for the minority of honest brokers (LOL! Real Estate joke!), but the fact is they are a tiny minority of rentals.