Study after study shows the same thing: when rent controls are introduced, landlords sell up. Use this calculator to model how many rental homes would leave the market in Greater Glasgow or Scotland under different policy scenarios, based on published academic evidence.
When rent controls are introduced, landlords sell up. Some convert their properties to owner-occupation. Some redevelop for other uses. Some simply sell to owner-occupiers who would otherwise have rented. The result is a smaller private rental market with fewer homes available to the people who need them most.
This is not a theoretical concern. It is one of the most consistently replicated findings in housing economics, documented across cities and countries over more than a century of evidence.
3%
5 yrs
Partial coverage
2025 shows the pre-policy baseline. The reduction begins in 2026 as controls take effect. Exit rate is front-loaded as the most financially marginal landlords leave first. It slows only as that population is exhausted, not because conditions improve. Rent controls prevent yields recovering.
Additional negative effect: new construction
These are modelled estimates based on published academic evidence, not predictions. The actual effect of any rent control policy depends on its design, enforcement, and wider market conditions.
Winning and losing under rent control
WINNING
Wealthier renters looking to buy
As landlords sell up, more properties enter the sales market. The people best placed to take advantage are those with savings or mortgage access. Rent controls quietly transfer housing wealth upwards.
MIXED
Sitting tenants
Renters already in a controlled property pay below the market rate in the short run. But the protection comes with a hidden cost: moving means losing the controlled rent, so tenants become trapped in homes that may no longer suit them. And if the landlord eventually sells, they re-enter a market that has shrunk around them.
LOSING
Renters in the cheapest homes
The properties most likely to leave the market are those at the bottom: older stock with the thinnest yields. When they go, the cheapest options disappear first — the exact opposite of the intended effect.
LOSING
New renters entering the market
Young people, those moving for work, and anyone leaving temporary accommodation face a smaller market with less choice and higher asking rents on uncontrolled properties. These are the people rent control was supposed to help most.
How we calculate this
Evidence base
Diamond, McQuade & Qian (2019) — San Francisco
Rent control reduced rental housing supply by 15% as landlords converted or redeveloped properties. The policy transferred wealth from future renters to existing ones. Read →
Kholodilin (2022) — 16 countries, 1910 to 2016
Stricter rent regulation consistently reduces rental supply across all country contexts, with harder caps producing larger and faster landlord exits. Read →
Sims (2007) — Massachusetts deregulation
When rent controls were lifted in Massachusetts in 1995, rental housing supply increased significantly, confirming that controls had been suppressing it. Read →
Brookings Institution (2022)
Comprehensive review concludes rent control "decreases affordability, fuels gentrification, and creates negative externalities" in the long run. Read →
Want the full argument against rent controls, with more context and citations?