Rent Control among factors hurting Portugal

Gago da Graça is full of shit, or at least a moron. But much worse than that is the sloppy reporting by NYT/Reuters.

Quite a few countries in Europe have what is known as "Tenancy Rent Control", which means that it goes to market upon vacancy, but from that setpoint is rent-regulated until the tenant chooses to leave. If he means succession by children from their parents is unique to Portugal, I doubt very much that's the case either.

I am pretty sure it is in fact unique to Portugal - this is both vacany and rent control together. So in California, for example, its illegal to have BOTH - thus in Santa Monica, Berkely, SF - landlords can raise rents to whatever they want once someone moves out, but have rent control while they occupy.

Read about rent control around the world - its pretty clear Portugal is draconian even by NYC standards:
http://www.globalpropertyguide.com/investment-analysis/The-pros-and-cons-of-rent-control

The ham is awezsome.

I might not be a well-trained actor, but don't be calling me a ham, not even an awezsomez one.

The details on Portugal are at http://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Europe/Portugal/Landlord-and-Tenant ... they don't sound particularly draconian to me, but presumably they're the ones Gago da Graça bought into. And presumably there aren't lots of Portuguese families living in the streets.

ahahaha sorry alan, but the ham IZ awezsome!

The government regulations are unnatural. Although European countries can tolerate this because of their age relative to American cities, the United States should not have these situations which distort the natural preference toward ownership.

There are no shortage of apartments to rent in Portugal! Most people dont rent because they have pride in owning.
The rent control is a cancer in the old part of Lisbon and Porto because the owners will not mantain an apartment/building that has been in rent control for 40 years for obvious reasons. This problem has not been address because it would be a political suicide.