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San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

sfchronicle.com

231–240 of 342 posts

Re: San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

#231

Keep in mind this a thinly traded market, during the pandemic even more so. We're talking about dozens of transactions here.

Yup, even when the market was "normal" (pre-COVID), it was usual to see random spikes and drops in the average rent price in SF.

In a given month, if the latest rentals are all luxury apartments, that will spike the average rent price even if prices haven't moved at all.

Re: San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rent control has a lot of unintended consequences. It is supposed to be a short term band-aid for bad zoning policies, but the zoning policies actually have to be fixed if you want to remove the band-aid.

I'm willing to bet you more than a beer that a large share of people under rent-control are high earners.

In NYC, there remain a vanishingly small number of rent controlled apartments, and for every lucky lottery winner there are hundreds/thousands who lose housing/capital/possessions at the mercy of owners.

Not to mention the homeless.

Don't get me started on the housing "market" and rent control impact on supply/demand. Housing is largely an adversarial game, not a win-win game.

Re: San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

#233
post #73

This article seems to be based on only a few transactions, as not a lot of people are actually moving right now. I manage a couple of properties in the Bay Area, so I keep a close eye on these things. What I'm seeing is not a drop in rents, but an increase in $0 deposits and many weeks of free rent upon move in (sometimes 6+ weeks). Landlords are very reluctant to lower rents, because with the statewide rent control…

> Landlords are very reluctant to lower rents, because with the statewide rent control that limits increases to 5% a year, we're incentivized to keep the rents high and give months of free rent, just so our base rate doesn't drop. God what a short-sighted policy. Not that I expect rent control to go well but that's nuts.

"Rent control" has existed for nearly 50 years for property owners in California. It's called Prop 13. The current housing mess is a direct consequence of it

Re: San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

#234
post #73

This article seems to be based on only a few transactions, as not a lot of people are actually moving right now. I manage a couple of properties in the Bay Area, so I keep a close eye on these things. What I'm seeing is not a drop in rents, but an increase in $0 deposits and many weeks of free rent upon move in (sometimes 6+ weeks). Landlords are very reluctant to lower rents, because with the statewide rent control…

> Landlords are very reluctant to lower rents, because with the statewide rent control that limits increases to 5% a year, we're incentivized to keep the rents high and give months of free rent, just so our base rate doesn't drop. God what a short-sighted policy. Not that I expect rent control to go well but that's nuts.

I just negotiated an extension to a lease in Boston. The landlord eventually conceded 2 free months of rent on an extension of less than a year, but absolutely refused to budge at all on the monthly rent amount.

Their adamant defense that the unit was already at "market price" was just such absolute bullshit that I nearly moved just on principle. Lucky for them, I hate moving even more than I hate the landlord.

The average monthly price on my extension is about 11% below my average monthly price on the old lease.

Re: San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

#236
post #92

"Rents for a one-bedroom apartment dropped most in the cities richest in high-paying tech jobs, falling 9.4% in San Francisco compared with May of 2019. In Mountain View, home to Google, rents fell 15.9% year over year, while in Apple’s hometown of Cupertino rents dipped 14.3%, according to the rental search engine Zumper. In San Bruno, where YouTube has its offices, rents tumbled 14.9%."

This really doesn’t match my personal experience at all. I live in Mountain View (work at G) and pay 2k for a 1 bedroom (non luxury). Lived here 3 years and pretty happy with it but I checked Craigslist and padmapper last week for some of these supposed 15% rent discounts and found rent to be pretty much the same as pre pandemic. This is anecdata and I’m using human memory to compare rates per location/amenities but…

Similar here (except I get paid a lot less to work on the other side of Stevens Creek from the big G). $2k is pretty much the very bottom of the rental market here. I'd imagine that the top and median are going to fall first.

Re: San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

#237
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend saw 9 move-outs in his building last month, up from a norm of 1. All were AirBNBs.

What does that mean? The non-resident owner moved out their stuff?

My guess is the parent poster means residents are leaving. I know people who live in an apartment in Manhattan. The only way they can afford it is by renting out a room through AirBnB whenever they can. However, the pandemic+recession means much less demand for AirBnBs in Manhattan. On top of it, they have less work because their industry has effectively shut down from the pandemic. The result is that they can't afford Manhattan because the landlord refused to reduce rent, so they'll be moving out.

Re: San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

#238
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a loophole ripe for abuse.

Just like everything else, it's a two way conversation. The discounts have to happen with the tenant's knowledge and agreement. If you don't like it don't rent from a landlord who plays those games. If every landlord is playing extreme games with discounts to game the rent control law, it only points to the deeper problems that we all know exist but refuse to fix.

I'll rent to you at $5000 a month with a $4k discount month to month. That discount is renewable solely at managements discretion after 12 months. Seems egregious.

Re: San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

#239

I expect in the near future, the urban rents in general will fall. Between COVID and rioting, living in a dense city just lost a lost of luster.

People without kids aren't gonna move to the suburbs because of viruses/riots. Subrbian life is optimized for families.

Anecdotal but as half of a DINK couple who recently relocated to an exurban vacation property, our main reasons for being in an expensive city (office, culture, social gathering) have evaporated and I'd be surprised if they came back the way they were for years. Speaking as someone whose main desire in life was to live in a big city, the suburbs are looking pretty nice right about now (as, again anecdotally, they are for a good number of our friends in similar positions).

Re: San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might also be that people are preferring to not move in the coming months (thanks to COVID-19) and so the units that _are_ on the market simply aren't finding many buyers. I'm actually looking for a new place in the Bay Area next month -- some units have their sticker price uncharacteristically low for sure; many have some kind of specials running too, like first month rent free. I asked a few leasing reps if this is…

No, first month free or similar incentives has been common for at least fifteen years in the Bay Area. It's sadly also not uncommon that the first lease is considerably lower than following ones (for no other reason than the landlord betting on the inertia of the tenant).

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