Do Rent Increases Reduce the Housing Supply Under Rent Control? Evidence from Evictions in San Francisco

Rent control balances strong tenant protections with supply-side incentives for landlords. However, cities with rent control are also some of the United States' most unaffordable, prompting questions about how well these incentives are working. I examine how controlled landlords change their housing supply in response to price increases using a well-identified hyper-local demand shock: the privately operated commuter shuttle systems in San Francisco. Controlled landlords increased market withdrawal lings and became less likely to create vacancies via evictions in response to a shuttle stop placement. Policies raising barriers to market withdrawals prompted controlled landlords to respond by increasing their at-fault evictions