NYC Rent Controls

The mad NYC rent controls, which do nothing but distort the supply and demand situation for apartments in the city, making it especially difficult for newcomers to find decent apartmnets, are up for renewal. WSJ has the story:

As legislators in Albany debate the future of the city's rent laws, a key provision of the law that has allowed landlords to deregulate at least 100,000 apartments may be up for a change.

Since 1993, state law has allowed landlords to convert vacant regulated apartments into market-rate units when their rents hit $2,000 a month.

Over the years, the real-estate industry has strenuously resisted efforts by renters' advocacy groups to increase that amount.

The battle has been renewed with rent regulations up for renewal for the first time since 2003. Only now, the dynamic appears to be changing: a major landlord group is signaling openness to hiking the limit.

"We are prepared to look at a higher number," Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, a powerful lobbying group, said in an interview last week. "It depends what the rest of the package is."

Rent laws, which limit the ability of landlords to increase rents for about 1 million apartments citywide, sunset in June. If they're not renewed, landlords of these units will be able to raise their rents to market rates.

But that is not likely to happen.

 And never mistake New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo for Ron Paul. WSJ again:

In years past, when the laws have come up for renewal, the real-estate industry and Republicans sought to eliminate rent regulations entirely. But with Gov. Andrew Cuomo saying he supports rent regulation in some form, all sides in the debate have focused on how to extend the laws.