231–240 of 352 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like you have a mortgage... What is your point?
I suspect he's saying that his daily payment on his house is roughly on par, or less than the daily rate of a high priced hostel. You could have figured that out yourself without the attitude, right?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"In some neighborhoods of the Bronx and in Harlem, fully a third of the housing stock was literally abandoned by its owners: it was easier to just walk away and let the building rot than to take any action to repair it and continue to collect rent-controlled rents." It's absolutely scandolous that landlords would be allowed to get away with doing that. They should be taxed severely if they don't rent out the property…
It's scandalous that it was a better investment to simply walk away then lose money on every transaction? And then you think they should be taxed because the government is forcing them to lose money? I'm not some anti-government zealot, but think about what you are saying/asking for here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
it was easier to just walk away and let the building rot than to take any action to repair it and continue to collect rent-controlled rents. My parents and I lived in a rent-controlled apt in Manhattan in the early 1970s. Rent was $80/month. The 1973 oil embargo happened and heating oil prices went up. Oh, did I forget to mention that the $80 rent included heat?!!!! Basically things were so bad for the landlord that…
Ironically, rent control may have been the single biggest factor leading to the consolidation of ownership of New York real estate by the ultra-wealthy. If you were a landlord, you couldn't afford to pay enough to buy your tenants out of their apartments. But massively wealthy investors and big banks could - and they did . They bought the rent-controlled apartments that were money pits for small landlords, and then p…
This is why rent-controlled apartments should never be allowed to go back to "market rates". They should remain rent controlled in perpetuity. Problem solved.
A friend used to rent out a spare room in SF on a regular basis. Two years ago, he could get $1850 for a single room with it's own bath room, furnished. We're talking 6-10 replies from a Craiglist post within 24 hours. Stopped renting it out about a year ago. He just posted it again. Zero takers at $1850. Finally got someone for $1600 (-13% decrease in rent) after a month. A dramatic change. The rental market in SF i…
I know nothing about the San Francisco housing market apart from what I've heard in discussions here on HN. The received wisdom here seemed to be that powerful NIMBY lobbies in SF were preventing needed development and causing the sky-high rent. But this article is talking about an "historic construction boom". Did something change regarding development in SF? Or was the NIMBY effect always a bit over-stated? Anyone…
"Did something change regarding development in SF? Or was the NIMBY effect always a bit over-stated? Anyone care to speculate?" No, not much at all has changed and the "building boom" consists of 5 or 6 high rises and a small handful of quarter-block sized rental apartment complexes. Think of the normal background level development that is always occurring in Denver/Minneapolis/Portland ... that suddenly happened her…
This looks like a short term dip while the market adsorbs new units. Am I missing something?
What would make a difference is additional YIMBY pressure to roll back these harmful restrictions and delays, and allow housing to be affordable to build.
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that's cheap if it's a decent place in a nice neighborhood. i was doing 1500 (utilities included) on nob hill with 3 other roommates and 1 bathroom a year ago. and that was the cheapest i could find in a decent location, and that's including many of my emails that went unanswered.
For historical perspective - when I first moved out to the Bay Area in 2009, I paid $900/month for a master bedroom + private bath in a 3BR townhome, in Mountain View. My roommates paid $650/month. If you've never been through a downturn in the Bay Area, you'll be amazed at how low prices can go (and also at how many people can become unemployed and move back to where they came from).
Meh. "Plunging" is a strong word for an 8% drop. Even if you buy the "effective rent" argument, 22% isn't much of a plunge. This is a start, limited to a very few neighbourhoods, and merely makes the housing market slightly less insane.
Los Angeles though... :( One of my friends just moved here and is sharing a 5-bedroom home with 25 other people. I thought he was bullshitting me, and I still couldn't believe it when I went over. He's paying $600 a month to share a bedroom with four other guys. He told me it was the best thing he could find on 1-day notice. He pays for rent online, and he has no idea who the actual owner is, nor who is actually rece…
Sounds like your friend is a fool. I had a nicely sized studio in West Hollywood about 2 years ago. It was right on La Brea and Santa Monica, and that cost me $1000. With laundry and parking. The idea of paying $600 to split a room 5 ways is crazy. That is more representative of your friend than it is of LA housing market. WeHo is probably among the more pricy areas in LA(save Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and a few ot…
OP's buddy was looking for a place with 1-day-notice. A hostel is basically all you can hope for.