Why Rent Control Might Be Hurting the People It’s Meant to Help

The Missing Middle with Mike Moffatt and Sabrina Maddeaux

Host Cara Stern is back from parental leave, and she and Mike are jumping right into one of the most debated topics in housing policy — rent control. Inspired by Zohran Mamdani's campaign rent freeze proposal, they dig into how these rules shape the housing market, not just for landlords and tenants, but for entire cities. While rent control offers stability and predictability for those lucky enough to have it, it can also quietly freeze people in place — making it harder to move for a new job, grow a family, or even downsize later in life.

In this episode, they explore how rent control affects mobility, opportunity, and fairness between long-term renters and newcomers. From young families trying to upsize to seniors staying put in oversized apartments, Cara and Mike unpack the tradeoffs behind this well-intentioned policy. Is rent control helping affordability, or holding cities back from building the housing we actually need?

Chapters:

01:00 Introduction

01:19 Zahran Mamdani's rent control policy overview

01:44 Rent control explained

02:19 Mike gives an example of how rent control locks people into place

05:20 How being locked into place effects family planning

07:28 How being locked into place effects seniors downsizing

09:34 Rent control hurts people who need to move

10:03 The distributional consequences of rent control

10:45 How newer tenants subsidize newer tenants

12:39 Cara proposes an NIMBYism theory

13:21 Mike counters with “unintended consequences”

15:18 If rent control disappears mobility increases

17:36 Should rent control be abolished in Ontario?

Research/links

Housing Market Spillovers:

Evidence From The End Of Rent Control In Cambridge Massachusetts

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w18125/w18125.pdf

Stats Can data:

Housing suitability of private household

Rent controls do far more harm than good, comprehensive review finds

Rent controls do far more harm than good, comprehensive review finds — Institute of Economic Affairs

Renters’ shelter costs by duration of tenancy

Renters’ shelter costs by duration of tenancy

Mamdani Seeks to Freeze Rents on Stabilized Units. What About the Rest?

Mamdani Seeks to Freeze Rents on Stabilized Units. What About the Rest? - The New York Times

The Misallocation of Housing Under Rent Control

The Misallocation of Housing Under Rent Control - American Economic Association rentcontrol.pdf

Hosted by Mike Moffatt & Cara Stern & Sabrina Maddeaux

Produced by Meredith Martin

This podcast is funded by the Neptis Foundation and brought to you by the Smart Prosperity Institute.