I Have Read Prop F

It's worse than that. The California government is in a long-term constitutional crisis precisely because of the proposition system. The legislative burden from politicized, poorly written, un-repealable propositions paralyzes the state and local governments and budgets, and is the tyranny of the majority embodied. It starts with prop 13 and goes downhill from there. The only thing that will fix it is a constitutional convention and removal of the proposition process.

I realize that.

There is a famous story of the old west. Unfortunately, I can't remember names at the moment to even google it, but supposedly some saddles were stolen and someone was hired to get them back. He ran around shooting people on the brand of saddles that had been stolen. More saddles were returned to the seller than had been stolen. Even people who had actually purchased one no longer wanted to be seen sitting on one.

So I realize the law does not technically make it illegal to have your aunt visit. But if the effect is that you might get sued, the de facto outcome might be that you stop letting relatives come visit if you live in SF because the risk involved in doing something completely legal is nonetheless too high.

Of course, California also interferes with the market to discourage selling real estate. Proposition 13 disconnected property tax rates from the value of the property (by capping the increase in assessed value at 2% per year, far below the increase in actual market value).

Which created a massive incentive to hold real estate as long as possible without selling, since the only time the tax rate can reset to being based on market value is at the time of sale.

It all comes back to Proposition 13, which crippled local governments.

This is a (slightly updated) repost of an earlier response of mine on this topic.

Everyone has an opinion about airbnb. Here's my big worry.

San Francisco's population of children has plummeted in my lifetime (I grew up in SF in the 70s). In this time, I think it has gone from about 22% to a current rate of 14% or so. I guess it's just important to me that SF continue to be a place people are from, rather than a place where young people move prior to having families, or (increasingly) a place where empty nesters move and enjoy the city after having families.

Here's the thing, I consider this to be a very economically vulnerable stretch of life. I have two kids, in SFUSD, and I'm starting to see just how colossal a disadvantage a family with two kids would be in a bidding war against someone who intends to put the extra bedrooms in a SFH or a 3 bedroom apartment on airbnb instead.

It's no secret that housing is in short supply in SF, and that the price of a house or apartment in SF reflects what the highest bidder is able to pay. It's also probably not surprising that kids are very expensive. A two income family (pretty tough to live in SF if you aren't) means daycare - and daycare costs, conservatively, over $2,000 a month per kid. Even if they're in SFUSD ("free"), after care at school with run you about $4,000 a year per kid, and summer camps will add another $3000 or so per kid, if you're doing things the inexpensive way.

Now, imagine that a family with two kids now has to compete against a bidder who plans to put the "spare" bedrooms on airbnb, and who factors that into the bid. The family has two very expensive, non-revenue generating children. The airbnb buyer has a massive advantage here, and I see it as another factor that could potentially put massive new pressures on an already collapsing population of families with children. It could also reduce turnover - someone who no longer needs the extra bedrooms and might have in the past downsized (opening up a SFH for a new family) now rents the bedrooms out full time on airbnb.

Sure, these problems could have existed with permanent, long term tenants, but I do think that it was less likely. Airbnb definitely makes it far easier and more profitable to do this - this is one big reason why the company is so large and profitable itself. Is this happening? I don't know, I don't have the data. Until then, it's just a fear, though not (in my opinion, obviously) an unfounded one. But if they company won't open up the data and recognize the possible danger, my guess is that the public will support strict regulations.