There's certain hot zones in cities where the rent can increase by much greater than 7% YoY. In those hot zones no one's wages are rising at the same rate, so that law is the only thing that prevents the people previously living there from being forced to move even if they would rather stay. Essentially, it's the policy that is in response to all the stories about retirees being forced out of a home they rented for decades or the stories about the cops and firemen sleeping in their cars because their job is a 20 hour drive from their house and they can't afford anything closer to their job.
Cops and fire fighters are unionized, protected and well paid. For years the argument for higher pay for cops in Frisco was that cops couldn’t afford to live where they worked. That was effective marketing, cops never wanted to live in the city they all live in Santa Rosa. Perhaps using teachers as an example would be better.
They outbid everyone else on every available unit.
They use their money to build new units in that area or entice someone to build new units on their behalf on which they will then outbid everyone else.
