The Guardian takes a look at how rent control doesn't work in Stockholm, Sweden:
the system is experiencing acute pressures. Building of rental homes almost dried up after a financial crisis in the early 1990s, and there is a dire shortage of properties. Demand is such that it is almost impossible to get a direct contract. With nearly half of all Stockholmers – about 500,000 people – in the queue, it can take 20 or 30 years to get to the top of the pile....
The result is a thriving rental property black market, with bribes of as much as 100,000 kronor per room to obtain a direct contract, McCormac says. Many people sublet space in their rental apartments. When one tenant advertised a tiny closet last year for rent, there were many potential takers. "It is almost impossible for immigrants and new arrivals to penetrate this market – it is all about who you know and how much money you have," McCormac says.
Students, young people and immigrants are consequently shut out, and ethnic and social segregation is increasing. "Rent controls were supposed to enable people to live in central locations, but now it is having the opposite effect," McCormac says.
Sounds like what happened with rent control in New York City, San Francisco, and Cambridge, Mass. When the government, rather than a free market, sets prices, supply doesn't meet demand, and vacant apartments become as scarce as a union-made-in-the-U.S.A. Bernie Sanders T-shirt. Under socialism, the shelves are bare, whether the product is housing or clothing. The Guardian is a left-leaning newspaper, but there are some truths that even the left-leaning newspapers have to acknowledge. A 30 year waiting list for a rental apartment is one of them.