Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

facebook.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 628 posts

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

#101

Post by vertex-four »

ghshephard wrote: post #92
vertex-four wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those landlords don't have clear plans to use the property, that is decidedly irrational.

Highly unlikely that 10,000 landlords with an extraordinary desire to maximize their return are being "irrational". If you rent out the property in San Francisco, you effectively lose control of what you can do with it. By not renting it out, you maintain control, and you can rent to family, make use of it yourself. I'm guessing that airbnb also is an attractive option now to get around the price-control laws.

Renting it out to family, making use of it yourself, and renting very-short-term using airbnb, are not leaving the building vacant.

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

#102

Post by jlebar »

> The few of us who still remain in San Francisco have no choice but to live in sub-par conditions like mold, windows that don't shut, rodents and countless other issues because there is no other choice, because the rents are so high you can't move so you don't.

Yes. But the solution isn't more rent controls. That just increases the gap in price between market-rate apartments and rent-controlled apartments. This makes it even harder to move, and it further increases the incentives for landlords not to maintain their rent-controlled apartments or pull stunts like this.

The solution is to add supply to meet demand. We should be furious at the forces that have kept supply in SF so absurdly low.

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

#103

Post by cmdrfred »

therealwill wrote: post #58

Here is the home: http://www.trulia.com/homes/California/San_Francisco/sold/71... Taxes are 11,043 with a value of 904,085. $2145 looks like an EXTREMELY low rent for a house of this size in San Francisco. (half of the rent is just property taxes.) The landlord was likely losing money keeping it rented at $2145 even if he owned it free and clear.

I live in a pretty expensive area and $2145 is high for a one bathroom, and if there are multiple units isn't that essentially a boarding house?

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

#104

Post by impendia »

IgorPartola wrote: post #17
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,…

> Rent goes down. The market has corrected itself and all is well. What am I missing?

You're missing the fact that rent won't go down -- at least not by much, because living in San Francisco will remain desirable for enough people who are willing to pay very high rents. Only the very wealthy, or those who bought in a long time ago, would be able to live in San Francisco.

Of course, this is increasingly the case anyway. And one could make the case that this is an acceptable outcome. I (like many) believe that it's unacceptable, but this is debatable.

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

#105

Post by dgfv1 »

therealwill wrote: post #58

Here is the home: http://www.trulia.com/homes/California/San_Francisco/sold/71... Taxes are 11,043 with a value of 904,085. $2145 looks like an EXTREMELY low rent for a house of this size in San Francisco. (half of the rent is just property taxes.) The landlord was likely losing money keeping it rented at $2145 even if he owned it free and clear.

It was a multi unit building.

Also holy shit that place looks like a dump.

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

#106

Post by cma »

cookiecaper wrote: post #24
vertex-four wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Landlords have the right to change their mind when it comes time for lease renewal. You're arguing that landlords should be forced to always rent their property to the same tenant once they begin. That's how ownership, not rental, works. Rentals are for a limited time by definition.

In a rent controlled area, they don't have that right, by definition. Rent controlled rentals aren't for a limited time, with various exceptions, by definition.

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

#107

Post by afarrell »

ghouse wrote: post #62
vertex-four wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 up to 10,000 units in San Francisco are vacant because they think it's unfair. http://kalw.org/post/growing-number-san-francisco-landlords-...

Someone could do arbitrage on this by creating a pipeline of "high quality" tenants that they can market to landlords as less likely to skip out on rent or become problem tenants: Ivy-League graduates, employees of well-known companies, etc.

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

#108

Post by freehunter »

thearn4 wrote: post #89
therealwill wrote: post #58

Here is the home: http://www.trulia.com/homes/California/San_Francisco/sold/71... Taxes are 11,043 with a value of 904,085. $2145 looks like an EXTREMELY low rent for a house of this size in San Francisco. (half of the rent is just property taxes.) The landlord was likely losing money keeping it rented at $2145 even if he owned it free and clear.

> 1 full bath, 1,900 sqft Single-Family Home > a value of $904,085 I understand the nature of supply and demand and the appeal of living in an area full of like minded people, but as someone in a flyover state, this absolutely blows my mind.

Shoot, in the Midwest I have an apartment with about that much square footage, two full baths, and I think I'm getting ripped off at $1400/mo. Did I mention I moved in less than a year ago, and was the first resident in the building, so it's brand new?

I understand San Francisco is the home of technology, but get your stuff sorted out, seriously. Is it worth being in a city that absolutely hates you? A city that would do anything to make your lives miserable? I wonder what would happen if Apple and Google packed up and moved to, I dunno, Milwaukee?

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

#109

Post by WalterSear »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #93
harryh wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when do people that own things have a moral obligation to justify their prices?

Since when do people have a moral obligation to anything? I didn't claim a moral obligation. It is the market's prerogative to demand justification for a seller's price.

>It is the market's prerogative to demand justification for a seller's price.

Bollocks. It's the market's perogative to meet that price or not meet that price.

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

#110

Post by harryh »

x0x0 wrote: post #6
JDiculous wrote: post #2

Is that legal? In NYC, there are laws in place to limit the amount a landlord can raise rent.

Yes, it is almost certainly legal. The other option landlords always have is to withdraw the unit from the market. You can Ellis Act anyone you want; the price you pay is $18k per person or so plus waiting 366 days, and a stained title. You can still renovate then TIC the building though, and you'll find plenty of takers. ps -- having been in a legal fight with an sf landlord, the fact of the matter is despite all th…

What do you mean by "stained title"?
Post reply on HN