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

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

#461

Post by bau5 » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 4:45 AM UTC

politician wrote: post #246

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

It's supposed to be a part of basic income to pay enough for someone to be able to afford rent and to and choose where to live that's within their budget. If it was a separate thing, perhaps people could be given a choice among places with a low cost of living, and then the amount needed for basic income would be lower. http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Edit: Manna was more relevant than I thought:

> The government had finally figured out that giving choices to people on welfare was not such a great idea, and it was also expensive. Instead of giving people a welfare check, they started putting welfare recipients directly into government housing and serving them meals in a cafeteria. If the government could drive the cost of that housing and food down, it minimized the amount of money they had to spend per welfare recipient.

http://marshallbrain.com/manna4.htm

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

#462

Post by jsprogrammer » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 4:47 AM UTC

harryh wrote: post #446

jsprogrammer wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Oh wow, u mad bro?

Supply/demand curves are literally 4th grade curriculum where I come from. So yeah, mastered that shit 20+ years ago. Thanks for assuming though.

You've gone off the rails and are now confusing 'cost' with 'worth' or 'value'. We can only determine a 'value' or 'worth' when an actual transaction occurs. You can't just extrapolate out on a model curve and expect it to hold in the real world, no matter what your theory tells you.

Bottom line is, if a grocer is currently asking 40 cents for an apple, I will transact at that price no matter how much higher I 'value' that apple. I wouldn't pay 60 cents for an apple that a grocer is selling for 40 cents. I wouldn't pay 50 cents for it either.

BTW, ECMAScript is poised to take over the world. Better strap in.

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

#463

Post by maxharris » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 4:49 AM UTC

esrauch wrote: post #333

maxharris wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- What about the software I wrote in the past year and a half for the schools I work for? - What about the designs my co-worker painstakingly worked on over the same period? - What about the reams of reports my wife wrote at her company, which makes heart valves? She gets up at 4:30 in the morning, comes home at around 5 at night, works after dinner. When there's an important deadline coming up (which is almost all t…

I believe the person you were replying to was referring to land when he said property (which is a normal term to use, if someone asked me "are you interested in looking at a property?" it would pretty unambiguously mean land / physical building). Not that it means his stance was correct, but your argument isn't addressing his point.

Property is more than just land. People have titles cars, boats, copyright over books they've written, stocks, bonds, savings accounts, furniture, clothing, timeshares, patents on things they've invented, etc.

At any rate, in all three of my examples, money changed hands for work creating property. That money could be used to buy property, physical or otherwise.

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

#464

Post by eyeareque » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 4:51 AM UTC

cma wrote: post #126

maxerickson wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They converted the other unit in the building to storage (after hassling that tenant out). I don't think it's anything like 'isn't getting on', the landlord wants to convert the building to some other use and simply doesn't care about the tenants, which isn't the same as finding them disagreeable or whatever (one imagines they might want to do something like sell it as a private home).

You really think they will keep it as storage? Once the remaining tenant is out they will renovate everything and rent both units again.

I feel for the renter, but shouldn't the landlord be able to do whatever they want with their property?

Rent is going way up because there aren't enough homes in sf for the amount of people who want to live there. The city is to blame for this problem. Why is sf such a flat city? There should be a lot more tall condo buildings but as I've read it seems the city blocks any structure over 4 stories.

Raising rent will cause lots of low income people in sf to have to move. That's not a good thing--but what is the answer here? How do other large cities deal with this problem?

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

#465

Post by kristopolous » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 4:54 AM UTC

maratd wrote: post #286

wpietri wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're missing is that housing is not a normal good. Sure, there is a housing marketplace, which can provide some correction. But houses are also homes. People are born in them. People die in them. They love them, they cherish them, they fight for them. There's a lot of truth in the saying, "Home is where the heart is." What you're missing in that scenario is the large number of people who are displaced not just…

You can use the same argument for any good or service. Tear something away from a person and you can absolutely traumatize them. It can be a teddy bear for a little kid, a car for an adolescent, your laptop, you get the idea. You can't legislate life into some gentle state. It is what it is. You can, however, smooth out the bumps. Unfortunately, rent control does the exact opposite. It creates stupidity like this. Wh…

No they won't.

Type in "econometrics of rent control" into your search engine.

It's a fairly well studied question with a fairly consistent conclusion.

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

#466

Post by aceperry » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 4:58 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #415

vacri wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't legislate life into some gentle state. So you don't believe laws against crime? You can use the same argument for any good or service. None of the things you mentioned have the universality of a home, which strikes almost everyone, regardless of demographic. Those who aren't adversely affected by not having a home are notable for being extreme outliers. As wpietri said, housing is not a normal good.

A better way for him to have put it would have been: "Just like the Indiana state legislature can't by statute declare pi to be 3.14, San Francisco cannot repeal the law of supply and demand". Rent control or not, the law of supply and demand still applies; it just expresses itself in more dysfunctional and unproductive ways. That's the problem with rent control. Reasonable people can disagree about whether the publi…

"Rent control or not, the law of supply and demand still applies... or about whether rent control works. It doesn't work."

Without rent control, I'm pretty sure that a LOT more people would be pushed out of San Francisco. It seems to me that places like San Francisco, New York, and a few other places are not typical of what other areas experience. I know it's fashionable amongst the libertarian set to blame problems on regulation, but there is much more going on here than simple rent control.

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

#467

Post by prawn » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 5:05 AM UTC

jsprogrammer wrote: post #445

prawn wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The law as it pertains to these contracts or all residential tenancy contracts in the US?

Are 3-, 6- and 12-month leases common? All the residential arrangements I know of here in Australia would be 6- or 12-monthly. Gives a tenant some certainty, but also enables a property owner to move back in, sell, redevelop, etc.

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

#468

Post by lucaspiller » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 5:05 AM UTC

[Meta] Why has this dropped off the first page? It currently #32 and has 443 points, 447 comments and was posted 4 hours ago - there aren't any other stories more popular than this on the first page.

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

#469

Post by nedwin » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 5:08 AM UTC

phil248 wrote: post #194

meddlepal wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? Why do you think you should get to live somewhere highly desireable at a below market rate?

Many people think they should be able to live in a place they can afford with the reasonable expectation that it will be their home for the foreseeable future. Many benefits, to both the economy and society at large, come from ensuring the populace in general is able to find stable housing. While San Francisco's rent control may be too stringent for its own good, there are many reasons to support a more reasonable re…

Rent control increases the pressure on the housing market by increasing the price of rent for non-rent controlled properties and reducing incentives to create more supply.

Brief overview from Krugman from 2000 but plenty more research out there on the topic. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-rent-...

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

#470

Post by nedwin » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 5:11 AM UTC

Aloisius wrote: post #356

randyrand wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what about everyone else? That is an extremely selfish view. Rent control stifles new construction, and allows you to live in relative luxury at the expense of others. Let me ask you, if rent control is the solution to high rent, why not introduce legislation to cut all current rent rates in half?

> Rent control stifles new construction Rent control in San Francisco only applies to buildings built before June 1979. Landlords of buildings built after that are free to increase rent as they wish. If anything, it should promote more construction.

Unfortunately tenant unions and some politicians have been threatening to expand the definition of rent control for quite some time. This increases the risk that buildings built after that period are going to get locked down into rent control after the fact.