Why are people who have an apartment benefited by rent control?

Generally speaking, rent control helps only retirees. It hurts poor people and working class people. Basically, rent control hurts everyone except retirees.

Here's why. The basic rent control laws prohibit landlords from raising rents on existing tenants by more than some arbitrarily low percentage rate. Over time, an existing long-term tenant will be paying a rent that is far lower than market rate. The existing tenants will never leave, even after they retire, for fear of losing their cushy low rent. Eventually, you end up with housing that's filled with old people, and other people who really have no reason to live in the particular community, and therefore a shortage of housing for working people, recent graduates, and other people who have a job in the area. They can't find housing because its all occupied by non-working people, and thus they are forced to either pay higher rents due to the shortage of housing, or else commute long distances. And, because rent control is an additional regulation on landlords, fewer landlords will want to build more housing in rent-controlled areas, creating an even greater shortage of housing units.

Even worse, you also end up with welfare recipients who will refuse to move out of their apartment to take a job in another part of the country, again for fear of losing their cushy low-rent apartment.

The free market does an excellent job of providing housing that's available and affordable to everyone. Rent control does nothing but throw a monkey wriench into the system and create severe economic inefficiencies that benefit only a small number of people at the expense of everyone else in society.

Interestingly, the cities with the most prominent rent control laws are the cities with the largest homeless populations. (Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Oakland.)

Rent Control limits the amount a landlord can raise the rent, normally 5%. No rent control and landlord can ask for a 50% increase. That is the benefit

Sure lower home prices benefit the buyers if they qualify for a mortgage in the first place

Rent control rules vary.

Generally it benefits those tenants IN the apartment at time, because rent is controlled, cannot be increased except by guidelines, etc.

It does not benefit those looking, because often the rules apply only to those IN PLACE, not to new tenants.

It does NOT benefit investors/building owners, because it limits their return on their investment, prevents them from charging market rents and is a disincentive to improvements.

Rent controls impact renters and LLs, not buyers.

Rent controls don't apply to "buyers" - they apply to renters.

The problem with rent controls is that they have, in the long term, negative side effects that outweigh the intended good effects. Rent controls will actually reduce the total available rental market and reduce the amount of maintenance and upkeep that owners can or are willing to spend on. It's a classic case of government intervention in the economy with a bad outcome.