Every rental unit in the city I live in is rent controlled — the government sets a maximum rental increase per unit per year. This is here in the People’s Republic of … checks notes … Dubai. It works great.
The Dubai rent control system has some important differences compared to Berkeley. Dubai’s rent change is indexed to the rental market but Berkeley’s isn’t. Berkeley’s max change in a year is like 1% while Dubai’s could be as high as 20% in some cases.
Also, in Dubai if the owner wants to sell and not renew the lease they can. In Berkeley it’s not nearly so simple.
