Interactive tool
Rent control lock-in calculator
Why moving to a smaller apartment can cost more than staying in a big rent-controlled one.
A couple rented a three-bedroom apartment when their children lived at home. Twenty years later the children are gone and a one-bedroom would suit them better. But the three-bedroom is rent controlled, and today’s one-bedroom costs more. Enter your own numbers to see the lock-in effect:
What the calculator shows
Rent control produces one benefit that is difficult to dispute: if you already live in a protected apartment, it can keep your rent below what the open market would charge. The calculator shows the other side of the same coin. The larger the gap between your controlled rent and today’s market rents, the more expensive it becomes to move — even into less space.
That is the economically rational decision for the household. For the housing market as a whole, it means fewer units turn over and more homes end up mismatched to the people living in them. Housing hasn’t disappeared; it has become harder to reallocate.
Two groups, two answers
Rent control is easiest to understand if you separate the tenant who already has the apartment from the person trying to find one. A policy can help the first while making life harder for the second. Both can be true at once. Read the full explainer: Rent control can make a cheap apartment too expensive to leave.
Using your own numbers
- Allowed annual increase: local rent-stabilization ordinances publish the allowed increase each year. California’s statewide cap under the Tenant Protection Act (AB 1482) is 5% plus inflation, up to 10% a year, for covered units.
- Market rents: use current listings for comparable units in your area.
- Moving cost: include movers, deposits, overlap rent and time off.
This calculator is an illustration of incentives, not legal or financial advice.