This Is What Happened When Javier Milei Dumped Rent Controls

As Kamala Harris’s economic plan evolves around a failed communist policy of rent controls, Javier Milei ditched them in Argentina.

When Javier Milei was elected President of Argentina, one of his first orders was to scrap the country’s onerous rent controls. According to The Wall Street Journal, here’s what happened next.

Landlords are rushing to put their properties back on the market, with Buenos Aires rental supplies increasing by over 170%. While rents are still up in nominal terms, many renters are getting better deals than ever, with a 40% decline in the real price of rental properties when adjusted for inflation since last October, said Federico González Rouco, an economist at Buenos Aires-based Empiria Consultores.

Before that, they preferred to keep them empty.

In Buenos Aires—a city dubbed the Paris of the South for its broad avenues and cafe culture—many apartments long sat empty, with landlords preferring to keep them vacant, or lease them as vacation rentals, rather than comply with the government’s rent law.

In 2022, there were some 200,000 empty properties in Buenos Aires, up 45% from 2018, according to a report by Cedesu, a Buenos Aires-based policy group that focuses on urban development. Finding an affordable apartment under the rent-control law was difficult.

Harris’s economic plan will fail. It is the exact wrong thing to do.