I just read your newspaper story on the rental shortage.
But everyone skips around one of real reasons no one is building apartments anymore, and that is government rental increase restrictions.
Apartment buildings is the only business that you can buy where the government tells you how much profit you can make, instead of letting the market dictate how much you charge.
They let the owners fall farther and farther behind compared to what the rents should be at.
The only time you get market value is when a suite becomes vacant. So why would anyone build apartment buildings, and deal with some pretty bad tenants when you can build condos for the same money and sell them outright.
The tenants have done this to themselves by pressuring the government to impose rent control.
Lorain Jones
