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Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

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Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#301

Post by lumost »

klipt wrote: post #295
bwest87 wrote: post #87

Oakland relaxed a lot of zoning, and permitting regulations about 5 years ago, and so now you're starting to really see production sky rocket. This article [0] mentions 2019 was had 15x more units completed than 2018. And 3x the total units from 2013-2018 combined . Anecdotally, I have several friends who've all moved to Oakland in the last year or so. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and maybe, hope…

I think SF has already taken the hint that they can outsource their residents to Oakland. Residents strain the city budget via things like public schools. Businesses put money into the city budget via gross receipts taxes. SF wants the businesses but is very happy for residents to live elsewhere.

CT went this way as well, eventually the businesses look to follow residents - particularly younger residents who can't afford the inflated rent or down payments.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#302

Post by imtringued »

fragmede wrote: post #269
mola wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There so much land in the US. People don't have to live in San Fransisco. These people grew up there, they want to live in their home. You know, that emotional thing that money can't really explain. Sure they see the people arriving in, with huge paychecks that drive prices up, and them out as bad. Any human will, a rational agent won't.

For some it's a practical, not emotional. If your job is in the city, and does not allow working remotely, the choices are either commute an hour by car each way, commute for roughly as long via public transportation, or live closer to work. Hopefully with Covid forcing more sane remote work policies across the board, fewer people are forced to live somewhere they don't want to.

That's basically what happened. There is an overabundance of jobs but since there is no need to live in San Francisco the fundamental mismatch between commercial and residential property has been resolved temporarily.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#303

Post by 93po »

bfirsh wrote: post #88
ozzyoli wrote: post #54

Don't ask, Don't get. Everyone I know who has asked for a discount has got the discount. After several months of the pandemic, and noticing the adjacent apartment being relisted by my landlord at a discount I emailed my landlord and asked if I could have my rent adjusted by the same discount. They said yes, if I committed to another years lease. Saving 5% of rent, at the cost of a one year commitment didn't seem like…

As a data point: I asked for 25% off my 1 bedroom rent (which seemed like roughly market rate). They said something along the lines of "we're not lowering any rents because we're struggling due to the economy". So, I left and they got nothing. I doubt they're going to rent it out again for a while.

In Seattle, I asked for them to fix the internet and run an ethernet cable to my unit instead of relying on their spotty wifi. They said they wouldn't and they're raising rent a few percent. I declined to renew my lease as well. Some landlords are ridiculous. Hope they enjoy their massive spiking vacancy rates.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#304

Post by klipt »

Swizec wrote: post #107
ozzyoli wrote: post #54

Don't ask, Don't get. Everyone I know who has asked for a discount has got the discount. After several months of the pandemic, and noticing the adjacent apartment being relisted by my landlord at a discount I emailed my landlord and asked if I could have my rent adjusted by the same discount. They said yes, if I committed to another years lease. Saving 5% of rent, at the cost of a one year commitment didn't seem like…

Our landlord proactively offered! We pushed back a little and got an overall savings of around $6000 for committing to another year in an apartment we love. Well worth it. Added bonus: The apartment is rent controlled so it will take 2 to 3 years before rent climbs back up to our old level, if we stay.

I'm not sure rent control works that way. I think it only depends on the base rent, which is the rent in the year you moved in. I don't think later reductions reduce the base rent.

Which implies if you want to lock in lower rent with respect to rent control, you have to start a new lease in a different location.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#305

Post by natecham »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #128
jakear wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public housing projects.

You know, it's been a while since I left Potrero Hill, but I think that I heard the feds had taken over the public housing projects on the south side (you know, back where OJ Simpson grew up) because they were basically uninhabitable. What's the status on that? But you know, that's last generation projects. What's the status on today's "affordable housing" projects? Oh, you say it costs $750,000 in construction costs…

I have a friend living there now so it’s still inhabited, says his place is in pretty bad shape though.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#306

Post by manfredo »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #102
ashtonkem wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinion is that rent control is much less about actually controlling rent, and more about controlling who is allowed to be in the city and where. Most rent control systems I’ve seen strongly favor those who have been in their current apartment for a long time, as moving often resets the rents back to market rate. And while that does help avoid evicting long time (and old) tenants, it also has the effect of forcing…

That concern, though, is something I've grown much more sympathetic to. There's a fundamental unfairness in putting in work to make your local community great, making it so good that rich people want to live there, and then being told that the community no longer has room for you because the rent is too high. If the city won't allow enough housing to keep your area affordable, you have a right to feel aggrieved, and…

Sure, but...

> If the city won't allow enough housing to keep your area affordable, you have a right to feel aggrieved

The city is not the one preventing more development. It's overwhelmingly these xenophobic residents that are responsible for that. I don't have much sympathy for people aggrieved by shooting themselves in the foot.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#307

Post by Ekaros »

Apocryphon wrote: post #209
sokoloff wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the market will only bear $3100/mo for an apartment today, that's in part because some less desirable apartment is renting for $3000/mo and that might be the case because that landlord can break even on cashflow and bank on the appreciation. Institute an LVT and those competing landlords may become cashflow negative, forcing some of those units off the rental market entirely (typically to sales to owner-occupants,…

Wouldn’t the rent be too prohibitively expensive at some point, and the landlord will be forced to shift their strategy for recouping the money lost from LVT from lowering rent, to redeveloping it to be a more effective money maker? Such as by building more units and increasing urban densification.

Now what if redevelopment is not possible? Maybe regulation stops it? Actually, if net value of land is negative what will happen to it? That is taxes are more than value and there is no legal way to extract more value...

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#308

Post by nostrademons »

Apocryphon wrote: post #267
nostrademons wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LVT is a tax only on the unimproved value of the land. Property improvements are not covered: the land owner gets to keep (or pass onto the renter) 100% of the value of such improvements. No tax credit is necessary; it's a natural consequence of how the tax is structured.

Right, I understand that property improvements aren’t considered in LVT, and are naturally incentivized through the application of the tax. I’m just speculating if specific development-adverse markets could use both LVT, and credits against LVT to really get the pro-development ball rolling. Based on the one prior attempt at LVT in the U.S., landowners don’t seem to understand its intent: https://www.washingtonexamin…

There's a pretty big risk of market distortions then. I could easily see landowners adding whatever "improvements" the tax credit incentivizes, regardless of whether it benefits the tenant or increases the potential rent charged, and then passing the cost along to the tenant. Also see a booming cottage industry of contractors & paper-pushers to get the tax credit.

I do agree that an LVT has psychological issues when proposed to voters. It's a massive change to how we currently do things (that's the point!), and it preferences groups who don't currently have political power (future developers, tenants, future residents) over those who do (land speculators, retirees, existing homeowners). I think the most likely scenario for its adoption is in the aftermath of a cataclysmic war that destroys all the existing infrastructure and redraws political boundaries. Likely one successor polity might try it out (since everything's dead & destroyed anyway), and then their pro-development advantages would draw lots of displaced immigrants to them, and eventually they'd amass more power than their neighbors through that economic dynamism. Much like how the U.S. became the pre-eminent global power through an innovative politico-economic system + immigration friendly policies + near complete genocide of the native population.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#309

Post by epistasis »

runarberg wrote: post #299
epistasis wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support rent control fully, but it does nothing to lower rents. It keeps them the same, at best. It's a way to protect current tenants, which is good, and we should support, as an "ownership-lite" model of residency. But it's only one, very small, tool in the arsenal to make cities work for the people. It must be accompanied by robust protections to new people as well. The flaw with rent control in isolation is tha…

I’m not talking about rent control as it is currently done in San Francisco. We need more. Like you say, rent control should also apply when a new tenant moves in. A landlord should not be allowed to raise the rent arbitrarily when a new tenant moves in. Also rent control should not be the only measure. The county should also buy up housing and rent for cheaper to drive the market rate down, price gauging should be i…

You're still missing the most important component for affordability: more housing. Not simply conversion of existing market-sold housing to price controlled, but more.

Lets say that everything gets converted to rent-controlled in an area. A child becomes 18, graduates from high school, and wants to stay close to their family to maintain their emotional connections. If everything is rent-controlled, but not enough housing is built, they have to be on some sort of waitlist or lottery to stay in the area. This will push out so many people.

The only solution is to make enough housing for the people that want to live in an area. Without that, we are rationing it by price, by lottery, or by waitlist, and all of those will destroy the emotional connections that both you and I want to maintain.

Re: Average Rent in San Francisco Has Dropped $1k This Year

#310

Post by lotsofpulp »

lumost wrote: post #301
klipt wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think SF has already taken the hint that they can outsource their residents to Oakland. Residents strain the city budget via things like public schools. Businesses put money into the city budget via gross receipts taxes. SF wants the businesses but is very happy for residents to live elsewhere.

CT went this way as well, eventually the businesses look to follow residents - particularly younger residents who can't afford the inflated rent or down payments.

CT has a different problem, they kicked the labor expenses 30 to 50 years into the future via underfunded defined benefit pension benefit, retiree healthcare, and other deferred compensation.

They don’t have a tier 1 city which people are willing to pay a premium to live in, and the taxpayers today are balking at paying for labor performed decades ago.

I’d be wary of starting a business subject to a relatively deeply indebted government if I had other options.

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