What About Landlords' Interests?

The premise of The Post's series on the condominium boom ["Forced Out," front page, March 9-11], that landlords victimize their tenants in pursuit of profits, failed to capture the root cause of the District's housing woes.

We cannot exempt rents from the law of supply and demand and expect that landlords will maintain their properties, build new properties or not seek to convert their properties to more profitable uses.

What incentive does a landlord have to endure a market in which profits are capped and the specter of criminal liability for regulatory violations looms omnipresent?

In a free market, a tenant's desires could be obtained by contract and a willingness to pay the market rate (and a willingness to move when expectations are not met). Instead, under rent control, we have a system in which tenants are legally permitted to get something for nothing.

Some may wish otherwise, but it is inevitable that such a system fails in practice.

NICHOLAS PROVENZO

Chairman

Center for the Advancement of Capitalism

Washington