The Effect of Rent Control Status on Eviction Filing Rates: Causal Evidence From San Francisco

Max Gardner and Brian Asquith

Housing Policy Debate, 2025, vol. 35, issue 2, 334-354

Abstract: This paper presents causal evidence of a significant positive effect of rent control status on eviction filing rates in San Francisco, CA. Two datasets of eviction notices (n = 13,887) and property tax records (n = 1,978,687) are combined using a regression discontinuity design to estimate a local average treatment effect of ∼0.3% evictions per residential unit per year conditioned on positive rent control status. Compared to the baseline rate of eviction notices over this same time period, the findings suggest that for a given tenant, positive rent control status (i.e., living in a rent-controlled unit) increases the likelihood of eviction by approximately 127% per year. This finding is best understood not as an inherent characteristic of rent control policy in general, but rather as the result of specific state-wide laws, passed in the years following the adoption of rent control in San Francisco, which granted rent-controlled property owners an economic incentive to evict and the legal means to do so.

Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:houspd:v:35:y:2025:i:2:p:334-354

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DOI: 10.1080/10511482.2024.2393629

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