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“Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”

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Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”

#11

Post by tmurray »

Lewisham wrote: post #5
jackowayed wrote: post #3

If you read the caption, the real issue here is a horrible abuse of the rent control law. When the renter signed their lease, the unit was covered by rent control, putting very tight restrictions on rent increases and evictions. However, the landlord then essentially destroyed the other unit in the building so that they could reclassify the building as a single-family home instead of a multi-unit building. Single-fam…

I think it's sort of obnoxious and should be illegal to force landlords to keep renters ad infinitum just because. That hardly seems fair to the landlord, no?

property taxes are capped in CA, so the landlord's costs are essentially fixed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_%2819...

Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”

#15

Post by r0naa »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #12

YC sings the praises of San Fransisco, and they're right about the culture and the startup scene there. But things like this, and the cost of living overall, make me hesitate to start something out there.

Me too, I have yet to graduate from college but things like that make me feel that I should stay in Waterloo (Canada).

Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”

#17

Post by IgorPartola »

jackowayed wrote: post #3

If you read the caption, the real issue here is a horrible abuse of the rent control law. When the renter signed their lease, the unit was covered by rent control, putting very tight restrictions on rent increases and evictions. However, the landlord then essentially destroyed the other unit in the building so that they could reclassify the building as a single-family home instead of a multi-unit building. Single-fam…

OTOH, how much can you restrict the property owner? What if the other unit needed to be knocked down for a reason other than to get rid of rent control? Would it be OK for the law to tell the owner to fix it some other way? What if both units were destroyed in a natural disaster and a new structure had to be built from nothing? Is that still rent-controlled?

Also, is rent control even a good idea? In the short term, it obviously protects a renter from the market running away from them. In the long term it seems to create artificial conditions which eventually blow up in everyone's face. Imagine a plan where the current renters had a viable alternative. Now drop all rent control laws and let the market correct itself. Lower income renters move out, higher income families move in. Rent goes up higher. Newly moved in renters realize that they are paying 10x as much as the rest of the country, leave. Rent goes down. The market has corrected itself and all is well. What am I missing?

Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”

#18

Post by TheHypnotist »

Lewisham wrote: post #5
jackowayed wrote: post #3

If you read the caption, the real issue here is a horrible abuse of the rent control law. When the renter signed their lease, the unit was covered by rent control, putting very tight restrictions on rent increases and evictions. However, the landlord then essentially destroyed the other unit in the building so that they could reclassify the building as a single-family home instead of a multi-unit building. Single-fam…

I think it's sort of obnoxious and should be illegal to force landlords to keep renters ad infinitum just because. That hardly seems fair to the landlord, no?

It's not a commodity, it's livelihood. SF renters are still making money, this is gouging.

Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”

#19

Post by sigzero »

mcpherrinm wrote: post #8
Lewisham wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's sort of obnoxious and should be illegal to force landlords to keep renters ad infinitum just because. That hardly seems fair to the landlord, no?

I think it's sort of obnoxious and should be illegal to force renters to leave their homes just because. That hardly seems fair to the tenant, no?

If you don't own it. Yes.

Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”

#20

Post by SilasX »

vertex-four wrote: post #10
Lewisham wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's sort of obnoxious and should be illegal to force landlords to keep renters ad infinitum just because. That hardly seems fair to the landlord, no?

If they think it's unfair, they could just... not rent their buildings out. There's plenty of buildings in the US that don't come under rent control laws that they could buy and rent out.

And if you're fine with the supply contracting further in already-choked markets, then that works! If not ...
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