“Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900” • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 1:32 AM UTC

jsprogrammer wrote: post #47

Russell91 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, rent control is exactly why there is so little housing available in SF. Iirc, only 30% of the voting population owns property. So how is it that the rest of us (70%) don't vote to build more? Well, because 3/4 renters are under rent control, and essentially don't care. So only 70%/4 Edit: source: http://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-San-Francisco-apartm...

If the majority of owners don't wish to personally utilize their property and instead choose to extract rent from it, what exactly are the renters supposed to buy? Owners can apparently force renters to bleed ever more money, but renters can't force a squatting owner to sell, they just have to accept it or, as this letter exemplifies, GTFO.

> If the majority of owners don't wish to personally utilize their property, and to extract rent from it, what exactly are the renters supposed to buy?

If you offer to pay at least as much for the building as the landlord would expect to make from renting it out then any rational landlord will sell you the building.

> Owners can apparently force renters to bleed ever more money

If they raise the rent significantly above what typical apartments go for in the area then the tenant will move out and they'll have to spend money to find a new tenant and go without rent in the meantime.

Rental housing is one of the most efficient markets in existence. Landlords have nothing to gain by gouging tenants who will only move across the street to keep paying what they are now, which is why that rarely if ever happens. But when the local market price of housing changes, adjusting rents to meet the market is completely reasonable and natural.

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

#142

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 1:32 AM UTC

jlebar wrote: post #130

Brian-Puccio wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea behind limiting the landlord's profit is that many believe that it is more important for people to be able to afford housing than for others to make larger profits through, literally, rent-seeking. It's not just because, it's a social priority. Kinda like the comment the other day on HN that was something along the lines of "I don't see why we need the gov't regulating water prices, why can't the free market…

> not to mention supply/demand doesn't work for something with fairly inelastic demand lolwut? The free market works pretty OK for gasoline and food (taken as a whole; obviously specific foods are elastic). When was the last time you heard people clamoring for price controls at the grocery store? Even more to the point, the free market works just fine for housing in the vast majority of the US that does not have any…

Neither gasoline nor food are "free markets", even approximately.

Government actively intervenes to influence the supply and price of gasoline, and actively intervenes in food, subsidizing both production and consumption.

So, if whatever is being done for gas and food works well, that's not an endorsement of the free market.

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

#143

Post by knorby » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 1:32 AM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #108

thearn4 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 woul…

I lived in Chicago before moving to SF a few years ago, and I can't imagine ever going back. There is an argument about jobs, people, and companies that's complex, but people pay so much for so little space because it really is that valuable. The weather is near perfect year round, the food/beer/wine is astounding, the landscape is glorious, and so on. Midwest winters, particularly as climate change is making them worse, would be enough to keep me here, but my quality of life has gone up in about every other way possible.

People pay the premium because it really is that good. If a big tech company decided to move to Milwaukee, every other tech company would just soak up all the people lost.

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

#144

Post by clarky07 » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 1:32 AM UTC

brandonbloom wrote: post #94

agorabinary wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property owners took a risk by purchasing property, just as anyone does purchasing shares of a public company for instance. The value of your asset can go up and you find yourself in an advantageous position (a seller's market as you put it), or prices can fall and recurring buyers (like renters) are at the advantage. Rent control only distorts the market and is unfair to everyone.

1) Landlords can diversify their properties, renters only get one. Everyone needs to live somewhere, nobody needs to be a landlord. 2) You've missed my point about moving costs. Even when the market favors renters, the lease renewal negotiation favors landlords. This is because moving costs time and money payable to third parties. As a result, the landlord can charge higher rents for renewals than they can for new le…

1 - first, so what? second, nobody needs to live "there". They can move to a different rental.

2 - moving isn't "that" expensive. It's a pain in the ass, but you can do it in a weekend with a few hundred dollar moving truck. You might be able to raise rates a few percent, but you can't just move them significantly above market.

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

#145

Post by mod » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 1:33 AM UTC

jsprogrammer wrote: post #120

mod wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that despite the strong correlation & overlap, yes, law has "always been" distinct from morality, at least where the law wasn't whimsical. If it's not illegal, you can still do it, morals be damned, without being punished. It's pretty much the point of law--to give warning & right to punish. That's not the same as morals.

What is your definition of moral then? Laws, but particularly the Law described in those tradition's holy books, describe what is acceptable behavior in that society and is often associated with eternal and everlasting punishment after death for breaking them, in addition to sacraments that must be performed to be absolved of various attachments that are made to the person for their behavior.

I didn't think we were talking about "holy law" and afterlife punishment.

In that sense, I guess you're correct.

There's still lots of flaws in the theory, for instance morality has changed--slavery was not outlawed by holy laws, and seemingly was considered okay morally.

I don't personally equate legality with anything except written law enforced by people on earth, typically a government. Even in older times, "earth law" did not match "holy law." I don't think that, even at the time of its writing, the holy bible (for instance) described all immoral activity.

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

#146

Post by dredmorbius » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 1:33 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #115

DrStalker wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't they tell the tennet to move out? In Australia residential leases have a fixed term (usually 12 months) and after that become month-to-month, and the owner can ask you to leave with 90 days notice when you're not under a contract.

In SF the only real way to kick someone out of a rent controlled unit is via an Ellis Act eviction. The allows the owner to take the building off the market. Issue is, you need to pay a substantial fee to the tenant (many thousands if they've been there a long time) AND you cannot rent the unit out again for 5 years.

s/can rent/cannot rent/

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

#147

Post by bigiain » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 1:34 AM UTC

vertex-four wrote: post #101

ghshephard wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But I suspect renting it to family/AirBnB - and not declaring the income - ends up looking very much like "leaving the building vacant" on official records...

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

#148

Post by Sanddancer » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 1:35 AM UTC

whiteboarder wrote: post #13

Build more houses. None of this shit would happen if SF would just build more houses.

One of the problems is that San Francisco in the 60s and 70s passed rather strict zoning ordinances to prevent "Manhattanization". So, this city that has a very limited amount of space cannot grow upwards to help meet demand.

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

#149

Post by DannyBee » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 1:35 AM UTC

tfigment wrote: post #129

DannyBee wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For at least the past thousand years, the bedrock principal of law has been "restraints on alienation of property are generally considered invalid". That is, property owners are free to do what they want with their property. Another is: Your rights cannot exceed those of who you got them from (IE tenants cannot have greater rights to land than landlords) Tenants are tenants for a reason. The whole point of ownership…

Rent control is in play here I believe to prevent price gouging. Some companies are not very moral/ethical when it comes to tenants. I would argue that the fairer thing (when Rent Control is in place) for owners might be that they can discontinue the contract when it expires but they also forfeit the right to rent that unit for a period of time (like 6 mo or 1 yr). Owners have some right to reclaim the property for o…

Sure, i understand the moral/ethical part, and i'm generally in favor of preventing price gouging. But the vast majority of complaints i've seen are more "my rent increased from 3000 to 4000", when all the other rents in the area are $4000.

I had a bad experience myself renting in boston, that involved the health inspector fining the operating company about 20k.

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

#150

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 1:35 AM UTC

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-...

[deleted]