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I Have Read Prop F

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Re: I Have Read Prop F

#121

Post by pbreit »

tg3 wrote: post #99
s73v3r wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The heart of your argument is that there is some clear distinction between residential and commercial which doesn't actually exist. Residential properties have always been used for profit - its called an apartment." That's a completely different situation, and not at all relevant to this conversation. "These visitors are renting in a residential area precisely because they want a residential experience." And I want…

What is the burden of short-term visitors? I've heard that said before, but I've never heard any actual examples of problems that occur from short-term visitors that aren't present with long-term residents.

Owners give a crap. Long term renters less so. Short term renters not at all.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#122

Post by skuhn »

toast0 wrote: post #112
bmelton wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have owned a home for 10 years and want to buy a new home in another area, you will still want to sell your home. Actually, as an outsider looking in, the incentives seem set up such that you'd be far more inclined to rent your existing home than sell it.

Why would you want to be a landlord in SF? Even if its not rent controlled, a bad tenant is going to be a nightmare to get rid of.

I'm sure that it isn't all smelling roses and cashing checks, but rental property in San Francisco is literally a license to print money for many landlords.

Simply by virtue of having owned the property for several decades, you stand to make a significant amount of money from tenants.

Consider someone who has owned a property since the 80's. This person might have paid $600,000 for something valued at double that amount today. Their mortgage (if they even still have one) is $2400/mo, property tax works out to $500/mo, and they can charge $4000/mo for rent.

Lots of people in lots of places around the world rent their properties out for far lower returns.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#123

Post by mrgordon »

toby wrote: post #39
gkop wrote: post #36

The Sharebetter campaign website mentioned is totally biased, it's true, and it does seem likely that hotel interests are in no small part behind Yes on F. And I have no doubt F contains (perhaps really bad!) flaws. But this Medium post is also rife with misleading statements and hyperbole, and therefore hypocritical in light of the author's "here's the facts" tone (not a huge surprise since the author earns income f…

> The author is a "long-time SF resident" and pretending that an SF judge would want to jail somebody over renting out on Airbnb illegally? It seems like giving judges that power because "they obviously won't use it" has gotten us into a lot of trouble in the past.

Agreed, the law shouldn't say you can send someone to jail for 6 months if we don't think that is reasonable

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#124

Post by pbreit »

fredkbloggs wrote: post #60
pbreit wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like being pro or con U2 or bee stings. How could you not have an opinion? Personally, I think AirBnB has not done a very good job helping communities figure out what the best situation should be. Many/most leases and HOAs forbid short-term leases for very good reason and yet AirBnB turns an eye. And for people who own their residences, many areas are zoned non-commercial, again for very good reasons, and A…

I find it very easy to not have an opinion. Whether my neighbor wants to rent out part of his property via airbnb, craigslist, or not at all makes no difference to me. It does not affect my quality of life, does not interfere with my enjoyment of my own property, and is a private transaction among 3 (or more) parties of which I am not one. I just don't care, at all. That doesn't mean that his tenants might not cause…

Have you ever owned a residence? For starters, some banks won't even lend on a property that has too high a percentage of renters. And who wants to have new strangers roaming around the neighborhood all the time?

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#125

Post by Camillo »

skuhn wrote: post #120
Redoubts wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly should they do?

Don't make all of your money from a property tax that does not increase as your costs to provide services increase. There are options besides property tax for raising tax revenue. City-level local income tax is the first thing that comes to mind.

So you want to increase the tax burden on productive economic activity to benefit people who are just capturing rent. That's a horrible idea.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#126

Post by skuhn »

cheepin wrote: post #14
idlewords wrote: post #6

This is a really laudable write-up, whether or not you agree with prop F. The problem of "sounds good in principle" propositions that are terribly or deceptively drafted is one that makes every California election a minefield.

That's why a strangely sound election strategy is to just vote no on every proposition. Most of them have heavy corporate sponsorship and are written to deceive the public.

I find the proposition system extremely aggravating. Even for propositions that I largely or wholly agree with I have to ask myself: does this deserve to be an amendment of the state constitution or city charter? That's the power that voter initiatives essentially have, after all.

When you think about it that way, they almost all look pretty ridiculous. Should the San Francisco city charter have an amendment about whether one particular construction project in 2014 can be built at a certain height? Should we have a ballot initiative every time a new building needs to be built?

That might make sense in some alternate reality if we lived in a direct democracy with routine voting and people actually informed themselves about the issues they were deciding. I think it's pretty safe to say that we aren't living in that world today.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#127

Post by skuhn »

Camillo wrote: post #125
skuhn wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't make all of your money from a property tax that does not increase as your costs to provide services increase. There are options besides property tax for raising tax revenue. City-level local income tax is the first thing that comes to mind.

So you want to increase the tax burden on productive economic activity to benefit people who are just capturing rent. That's a horrible idea.

I don't believe that's what I said. Cities in California have services they are obligated to provide -- police services, for instance. The cost of those services over time has increased proportional to salaries. However, the revenue gathered to pay for those services has only increased proportional to property values -- which are artificially trapped in the 1970's to a large extent.

That is an untenable situation, and it is a large part of California's problem at a local level.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#128

Post by fredkbloggs »

pbreit wrote: post #124
fredkbloggs wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it very easy to not have an opinion. Whether my neighbor wants to rent out part of his property via airbnb, craigslist, or not at all makes no difference to me. It does not affect my quality of life, does not interfere with my enjoyment of my own property, and is a private transaction among 3 (or more) parties of which I am not one. I just don't care, at all. That doesn't mean that his tenants might not cause…

Have you ever owned a residence? For starters, some banks won't even lend on a property that has too high a percentage of renters. And who wants to have new strangers roaming around the neighborhood all the time?

> Have you ever owned a residence?

Yes. Do you even lift?

This article is about SF, which is a city. Most of the busybodies who get up in arms about airbnb are residents of cities as well. Cities are densely populated places with large numbers of tenants per unit area, high residential turnover rates, and lots of tourists. "New strangers roaming around" is just a fact of life, regardless of whether a particular rental broker is in business. If you don't like that, you would probably be better off living in a rural area where you could easily afford a large parcel of land from which others can be excluded. There are plenty of places where you could afford 160 acres of timberland and a very nice house for less than a 2-bedroom TIC in SF. You'd probably average one new neighbor per decade, none closer than half a mile away, and could easily go years without seeing another human if that's what you prefer. That's just not what cities are about.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#129

Post by owlmonkey »

gkop wrote: post #36

The Sharebetter campaign website mentioned is totally biased, it's true, and it does seem likely that hotel interests are in no small part behind Yes on F. And I have no doubt F contains (perhaps really bad!) flaws. But this Medium post is also rife with misleading statements and hyperbole, and therefore hypocritical in light of the author's "here's the facts" tone (not a huge surprise since the author earns income f…

I don't follow your train of thought on in-laws. Because they're small, they're unlikely to serve for 'hosted' rentals and more likely to be only short term rentable up to 90 days. e.g. when the existing renter in the in-law goes on vacation. So why does this proposition want to ban that use case entirely instead of just restrict it to 75 days?

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#130

Post by bsder »

mrgordon wrote: post #119
bsder wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can't even possibly fathom any reason to be either pro or anti airbnb. How about--because I find the serfitude economy ineffective outside areas that are already well-served through other mechanisms. Most of these middlemen are actively interfering in the most profitable cities and areas while ignoring those places where they would actively be useful because they are less profitable. People would find AirBnB, Uber,…

I'm not clear how it is Airbnb's fault if they don't have much availability in Kittanning, PA (population 4000). I found two places for rent there which honestly seems pretty decent. The median age is 40 in that area so it doesn't surprise me that Airbnb didn't catch on as quickly there as Brooklyn. You also underestimate the degree to which word of mouth helps two-sided marketplaces spread in urban areas. As for the…

> I'm not clear how it is Airbnb's fault if they don't have much availability in Kittanning, PA (population 4000).

It's not their fault. However, AirBnB, Uber and all the other serfitude economy ilk would get a lot less static if the at least tried to incentivize people in order to serve these kinds of underserved areas. Instead, they're trying to elbow their way into the already well-served markets--often while ignoring the law.

> As for the claim that "these companies" are "pushing all of the risks onto individuals", I would cite the $1,000,000 insurance policy that Airbnb provides

Did you read the page you linked? Did you note that it doesn't cover "personal liability"? Which is the whole reason you would likely need $1,000,000 in insurance? And I guarantee that your personal liability insurance won't cover AirBnB rentals.

Given the size of pool and statistics that AirBnB has, the fact that AirBnB doesn't just insure everybody tells me exactly what I need to know. I trust AirBnB's actuaries, and those actuaries have basically said "unprofitable if we cover everybody properly".

So, yeah, my point still stands about "pushing all of the risks onto individuals". These companies are masters of the "$1 MEEEEELLLYON DOLLARS" while burying the important asterisk "*it doesn't actually apply to anything you'd need help for" in the quiet fine print.

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