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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

#331

Post by epistasis »

bnralt wrote: post #324
epistasis wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though this is not an uncommon view in SF at the moment, I find it horrifying. What has made SF such a great place from the 1970s to ~2010 has been its willingness to accept new people, including the strange and the weird. That's not to say that it's been a great city for everyone , the first-wave gentrifiers from the 1960s pushed out Black people from the neighborhoods they took over, like Haight Ashbury, and the do…

That's an odd point of view - you're xenophobic if you don't prioritize unending population increases above all else?

I certainly didn't say "unending population increases" or "above all else."

But if you think that building enough housing for the people means unending population increases, that's really in line with the garden variety xenophobic anti-immigrant thinking I grew up with in the Midwest.

The zero-sum philosophy of a newcomer arriving meaning that a current resident loses out, or that the newcomer is "extracting" from the community rather than contributing to it, is also gaining popularity in SF, and is also a very common xenophobic trope.

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

#332

Post by lotsofpulp »

nostrademons wrote: post #291
0xffff2 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked as a line cook in college. The place I worked was in a HCOL city, but nowhere close to SF. Our general rule was that items should sell for about 4x the cost of ingredients to cover all overhead. I'm a salaried employ with no expectation of overtime, so my opportunity cost to cook for myself is essentially $0/hr, but even if I factor in a fairly reasonable $15/hr for my own labor, I'm still easily under 4x ra…

I think that there are a couple effects here. One is that $15/hr is a dramatic underestimate of the opportunity cost for many of the people who would otherwise be eating out. Minimum wage in Mountain View & Sunnyvale is $16.05/hour. My wife & my salaries, if converted to hourly, would be several hundred / hour. We cook at home because we're salaried and so don't actually reap that opportunity cost in cash, and becaus…

> One is that $15/hr is a dramatic underestimate of the opportunity cost for many of the people who would otherwise be eating out. Minimum wage in Mountain View & Sunnyvale is $16.05/hour. My wife & my salaries, if converted to hourly, would be several hundred / hour. We cook at home because we're salaried and so don't actually reap that opportunity cost in cash,

You can’t say that your opportunity cost is $x and then also state you did not have a choice to earn $x. They are contradictory statements. Unless you are a robot capable of working as much as you want with no downtime, this type of calculation make no sense.

Not to mention the costs of eating out include unhealthy meals, among others.

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

#333

Post by imtringued »

runarberg wrote: post #285
fennecfoxen wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rent control as implemented can only make housing just-as-expensive, and rent control cannot make housing affordable for normal people. Put a plain 2BR in the Mission at, idk, $1500 a month (which Google tells me is a bit over the US median), and you'll have to hold a lottery to figure out which of the ten thousand families trying to get it, actually get it. Maybe you don't always have a lottery, maybe the big winner…

I’m not thinking small. I wonder if a confluence of several efforts would come together and make a real impact. E.g. make it illegal to charge more then x for an apartment evaluated at y. Make it illegal to raise the rent more the x over inflation (also between tenants). Make it illegal buy housing with the intention to sell for profit. County could buy housing with set rent to drive down the market rate. Make it ill…

No this won't work. As I said just let the government provide housing for a reasonable price directly. Private landlords can still make money by undercutting the government but they can't charge more because getting your housing from the government will always be cheaper.

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

#334

Post by jeffbee »

daniellarusso wrote: post #315
jeffbee wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it delivers 97% of the product to the user. Seems pretty good. What is your standard? According to the EPA the typical water system loses 16% to leaks, that means SFPUC is well above the typical system performance. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-04/documents...

Where are you getting 3% loss number from? It seems to be over 10% is lost, based on the numbers in your prior comment. As long as most places are leaking more, it is ok? Infrastructure relativism?

The amount of water SFPUC delivers to residential customers in SF is a small portion of the whole system, which serves a large area outside the city.

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

#335

Post by Der_Einzige »

Anecdotally, I was successfully able to negotiate 1300 off my rent here in the peninsula. I was paying 4500 for a 3 bedroom, nice mid century modern before COVID. After February, I will be paying 3200 for at least another year with an optional 2nd year at the same price. It's a good time to be a renter here.

The prices are now so low on renting, that my plan to eventually buy a house farther north (Oregon or California) is now put on hold while I muster up a bigger down-payment.

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

#336

Post by jjeaff »

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.

This behavior is very common and just baffling to me. In many markets right now, there is just no way they are going to rent that out.

The only explanation I have heard is that lenders allow a certain amount of vacancy increases in the terms without triggering a reevaluation of the property value. Whereas lowering the rent will more quickly trigger that new valuation.

And the way many commercial loans are setup, they may require immediate payment of the difference of the value of the property if it drops.

But this just seems short sided on the part of the banks. And why do seemingly so many of them have this policy? If I am assessing property value and vacancy sky-rockets, I'm going to be a lot more concerned than if rent has to drop a bit.

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

#337

Post by jonpurdy »

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…

Another data point. Tried to get a discount in our Inner Sunset 1BR that we paid $3250 for. Other units in the same building listed for the past few months for $2700 with 2 months free (effectively $2250).

Denied a decrease (citing CA Fair Housing and not giving anyone a decrease) so we paid 1 months rent to break the lease. Now living in a 2BR by the beach for the same price as before with 50% more space, W/D, garage.

Old apartment went from ~10 vacant 1BR to ~25 vacant 1BR listings during the past couple of months during our negotiation and move.

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

#338

Post by imtringued »

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…

>The county should also buy up housing and rent for cheaper to drive the market rate down

Almost, buying up housing is fine if the government changes zoning and upzones existing properties. It is better to go one tiny step further and make the government guarantee housing for a fixed price because then it is truly forced to fix the problem.

Once you have done this important step the government has many options. It can either fix the demand side or the supply side.

The supply side is easy to fix by changing zoning laws to encourage taller residential buildings and then by actually building them.

The demand side can be fixed by changing the tax law so that commercial property is no longer the only source of property tax income. This lead to an imbalance of commercial vs residential property which then lead to lots of workers without housing which then lead to a race for apartments driving up prices.

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

#339

Post by daniellarusso »

kosievdmerwe wrote: post #260
chillacy wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this: in real estate investing this is called the vacancy rate and it eats into profits, sometimes significantly. Too much vacancy and you can’t cover the mortgage.

Divide a month's rent into 12 and you see it's a 100-200 dollars, which highlights how much you'd have to raise rent for a month's vacancy.

...and that is if you are only dealing with a single vacant property.

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

#340

Post by gen220 »

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.

Can you expand on this?

Did CT follow Oakland, where SF is NYC? Or if CT is SF, where is the corresponding Oakland?

I live in NYC, and my view of CT is that its modern identity is dominated by being a suburb to NYC, with a handful of big and old businesses in the big cities to keep domestic economy afloat.

The places in my mind that don't fit this model are all east of New Haven, at which point CT starts to be "Coastal New England", a region that, excepting Boston, continues up to Bar Harbor, ME.

But my view is obviously biased by my limited experience, I'm curious to hear more of your perspective.

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