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

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

#441

Post by bbarn » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 4:15 AM UTC

The reason this article is trending at the top of HN is the reason this person is going through this. The idea that great start-ups must exist on an 47 sq mile piece of land with utterly mediocre weather (the literal definition of mediocre, that is - one many of us love, myself included) in perfect coexistence with a quaint aging population below the poverty line, drug addicts, and the last generation that sought to live there in the last boom is patently absurd.

Why so many globally reaching, internet based, in every home in the world companies think that they absolutely must be positioned in the mecca of startupdom is why I just can't take my own career seriously for too long. There's no reason we all need to be on that tiny peninsula! If you need to be there for "reach to investors", "proximity to the startup culture", guess what, your product probably sucks. If it were any good, you could do it from anywhere, without having to sit on the great lords of tech investment's front door begging every day.

You want to disrupt something? Why not start with disrupting the idea that being part of "start-up culture" is required to be successful.

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

#442

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 4:15 AM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#443

Post by shauncrampton » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 4:16 AM UTC

sampo wrote: post #364

politician wrote: post #246

Slightly OT: Does anyone know whether there is there a housing equivalent of the Basic Income movement? Basic Shelter?

Affordable housing is something that would actually be solved by free markets. It's the heavily regulated (almost socialistic) systems when building new homes to new people in a growing city is not allowed (because the old residents don't want their city to grow), so supply is now allowed to meet the demand, when we have these problems.

Everything could be solved by a perfect free marker where everyone had perfect information, zero latency in decision making and where making a decision cost nothing. Trouble is, IRL, none of those assumptions is even remotely true. Just as the renter signs an agreement, so does the landlord; rent controls skew the bargain but they do it for both parties. If the landloard didn't want to have a rent-controlled tenant for 10 years, then they should have magically known (using their perfect market information, duh!) that that tenant would be there 10 years and rented to someone else who wouldn't.

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

#444

Post by zobzu » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 4:17 AM UTC

javert wrote: post #78

s0uthPaw88 wrote: post #48

This is a perfect example of why rent control is a terrible system that leads to market inefficiencies and worse outcomes for a community. The law has made it more profitable for this landlord to remove housing stock and charge market rate for the remaining unit than to rent out both units in the building under rent control laws. Cities with low vacancy rates like SF need to rethink their approach to housing if they…

Completely agree with you. However, I think SF has already ceased to be an attractive place to live. I don't live there, so maybe it's not a fair comment, but I would not want to live there for the same reason I don't like flushing money down the toilet.

it certainly isnt super attractive for new comers.

- rent is very high, and the higher salary won't compensate all that much (salaries didn't move up as fast as the rent)

- its crowded, expect queues everywhere, and traffic. Lots of traffic.

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

#445

Post by jsprogrammer » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 4:18 AM UTC

prawn wrote: post #274

jsprogrammer wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not completely familiar with SF's laws, but typically rent-control laws state that an owner may only evict a tenant for good cause and that leases are otherwise indefinite, at the tenant's discretion. In this case, the owner has evaded rent-control to extrajudicially evict the tenant through extortionist pricing.

Why are leases otherwise indefinite?

1) Because that is generally the law. Typically with a 30 day notice of termination required from the tenant.

2) The reason for the law is that people should not be thrown out of their homes on the whims of a second or third party.

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

#446

Post by harryh » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 4:19 AM UTC

jsprogrammer wrote: post #439

harryh wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that's what consumer surplus is. Look it up. Without it you'd never bother to buy anything because you would gain no value from the transaction.

You're just stating things without making any argument. I am aware of consumer surplus, thank you very much. You said that I value something at 60 cents and the seller values it at 40 cents, therefore I will buy it at 50 cents. Not only is your simple linear model absurdly reductionist, it's just ignorant. If a grocer is willing to sell at 40 cents, I would never pay a 50% markup when I wouldn't have to, your asserti…

Are you dumb? I just made up the numbers. I never said anything was linear and even though the grocer is willing to sell at 40 cents he doesn't because then he wouldn't be able to meet supply so he raises the price until he can.

Maybe the real life numbers are 45, 50 & 55. Maybe they're 34, 37 & 50. Maybe you really fucking love apples and it's 34, 37 & 5000 in which case go nuts, buy up the whole orchard, and keep all the doctors away for all time.

Maybe those numbers aren't even close because what exactly does an apple cost these days I don't even know exactly.

But the point holds. There is a price at which the transactions happens. Somewhere below that is the producer willingness to sell. The difference between those numbers is the producer surplus. Somewhere above the price is the consumer willingness to pay. The difference between that number and the price is the consumer surplus.

Go find any economics 101 textbook in the known world and you'll have a downward sloping demand curve, and an upward sloping supply curve. They intersect at a market price. Then you get some shaded in areas for the producer and consumer surplus.

If you don't know what one of these graphs looks like then you aren't qualified to participate in any discussion ever about what things should cost. Just shut up and go back to writing shitty software using the worst programming language in general use today.

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

#447

Post by patio11 » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 4:20 AM UTC

bratsche wrote: post #302

tptacek wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're missing is that housing is not a normal good This logic taken to its conclusion brings us to some pretty disquieting places. Maybe SF should just build a lot more housing .

Build where? You know there's water all around it right?

Compare:

San Francisco Marina which can't build out because of the Pacific. https://www.flickr.com/photos/telstar/15230469/

Tokyo Minato-ku (the "Harbor District") which can't build out because of the Pacific. http://www.realestate-tokyo.com/media/249559/Windows-Live-Wr...

(This is mildly unfair to SF, which actually has a higher population density than Minato-ku, principally because Minato-ku is not a residential neighborhood. But if SF was serious about affordable housing, it would look like Minato-ku rather than "miles of two-story buildings.")

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

#448

Post by lucaspiller » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 4:22 AM UTC

spiralpolitik wrote: post #276

freehunter wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The major issue with SF is the lack of new housing being built at the first rung of the property ladder. Plenty of 1 million dollar plus units being built, but nothing for first time buyers. Worse the developers actively resist building affordable housing even when the city bends over backwards to accommodate them. Even worse is the amount of new office space being built. There simply isn't enough housing in the Bay…

> Plenty of 1 million dollar plus units being built, but nothing for first time buyers.

What is affordable? I'm not in SF (or the U.S.), but as I understand salaries of $150k+ in tech are common. Mortgage repayments on a $1mm property work out to be ~$5,000 a month for a 35 year mortgage, which you can easily pay if you are earning that much.

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

#449

Post by jsprogrammer » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 4:23 AM UTC

brc wrote: post #314

jsprogrammer wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most property, if you trace out the actual chain of transactions, originates in theft or fraud. Either a monarch or other military force took it from another group by force and parceled out pieces of it (theft) or literally just claimed it from afar (without occupation) and decided who to grant it to (fraud). Just because you are some steps removed from the beginning of the transaction chain, does not mean that you h…

And here we finally get to the 'all property is theft' argument. Give me strength.

You can just look at and read the documents that claim the rights. It's not really an argument, more a historical reality.

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

#450

Post by swatow » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 4:25 AM UTC

bbarn wrote: post #441

The reason this article is trending at the top of HN is the reason this person is going through this. The idea that great start-ups must exist on an 47 sq mile piece of land with utterly mediocre weather (the literal definition of mediocre, that is - one many of us love, myself included) in perfect coexistence with a quaint aging population below the poverty line, drug addicts, and the last generation that sought to…

I think people go to San Francisco for the 20-30 year old girls, not the aging population or drug addicts.