Earlier quoted context omitted.
portland is also quite nice....
hell yeah!
“Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
481–490 of 628 posts
Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
#482Earlier quoted context omitted.
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, "eart…
Those traditions and societies specifically named The Law (translated from the local language) as what you are describing as holy law. You still haven't described what moral is, or how one has an obligation to it.
Moral is right or wrong. Law is legal or illegal.
Moral varies per person/family/culture.
There is no obligation to morality, it's typically enforced by one's own brain and pressure from one's peers.
I don't disagree with the dictionary definition: https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define+moral
I'm not sure if you're just being a pedant or something, but as a for instance, it's not illegal in my US state to drink alcohol to excess in the privacy of one's home, yet a great number of people find it immoral. This can be said for some act or another throughout history--frowned upon, not illegal.
Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
#483Earlier quoted context omitted.
The general response from economists seems to be that rent control suppresses growth in the supply of housing that could otherwise address the cost of housing.
Zoning suppresses growth in the supply of housing. Of course, that doesn't mean that zoning is bad by definition. Instead of artificially keeping building height low, you could mandate new buildings have at least so many stories. San Francisco's problem seems to be that they can't possibly build enough housing to meet market demands without revising zoning restrictions in ways that would make current home owners angr…
You are right and I wasn't thinking things through.
Still, I submit that fears of extending rent control to new construction add to the problems caused by zoning.
Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
#484Earlier quoted context omitted.
If those landlords don't have clear plans to use the property, that is decidedly irrational.
Not really. The property quoted in the article was purchased in 1974 and California brought in strict limits on property tax increases in 1978. So the property taxes are probably trivial. The house acts as an investment with high returns and favorable tax status. They can sell it or take out a mortgage if they ever need money. Given that burning down the property to avoid a long eviction struggle isn't unheard of, th…
Which is to say that proposition 13 was a boondoggle.
Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then build a bit further away and link the new high rises with high-speed whatevers. Subways/underground/metro/u-bahn whatever you want to call it. It costs a fuckload of money, sure, but efficient cities are pretty much unimaginable without them (for now at least).
Well the geography and political climate of San francisco and its surrounding towns make this pretty difficult. It's a small city in a major earthquake zone, with tons of hills, surrounded by water and suburban neighbors who consistently vote down any expansion of the existing rapid transit system. Any new transportation infrastructure would take literally decades (see California's coming high speed rail line).
Only problem is politics. Japan has all that and pulled it off a bit too well. Similar goes for the crazy sandcastlers like Singapore.
I can't blame them (SF-dwellers) they had someting rare in the US for a little time. And general ignorance in, general ignorance out, that's local municipal politics, due to short-term incentives and big "costs" of initiating any kind of change or shift to a longer term horizon, nothing will change fast enough, so a lot of people will get bitten by these problems.
Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Deciding that you need a fatter paycheck at the expense of a renter who can't afford your desire -- yes, desire, not need -- for more money... yeah, in my book that makes you an asshole. Any rent increase that isn't tied to an increase in costs (sure, maybe plus a few percent for profit) or a CPI/inflation increase is just greed, plain and simple. Put another way: landlords who are al…
So, unless I'm in it to only make as little money as possible for me to have a reasonably comfortable existence (by some standard you have set), I'm a greedy asshole. I disagree. I want to be rich someday. I want to retire at 50 and travel the world, eating at overpriced restaurants along the way. I want to leave some wealth to my children. That's why I bust my hump working a day job as well as building assets in my…
> There's nothing morally wrong with charging market value.
How do you define market value?
Because for some landlords it seems to be the highest value that someone will pay to live there.
Taken as a collective action - that results in rents continually going up beyond wages.
I don't know all the circumstances behind the OP's rent increase - but an ~8x increase seems pretty astounding. Were rental prices left untouched for decades? Was there some major increase in the cost of maintaining the property or land? Has the landlord made significant investments in the facilities or amenities?
> My investment finally paid off and you want me to run a charity.
So, can you see any room between asking landlords not to be assholes about squeezing tenants for every last cent, and running a charity?
That's what I'm asking for - I understand you've put in some risk, you've worked hard to earn money. But your tenants are working hard too.
In many cities there's a huge (and growing) demand for properties that are within some reasonable distance to places of employment.
Landlords collectively driving up prices beyond wages and other costs results in a huge flow of wealth from the working class to the wealthy. This means someone on what would elsewhere be a fantastic wage, is at best mediocre. Those on lower wages may find they're having to share rooms and eat ramen two hours away from work well into their adult lives just to survive.
Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
#487Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not when prop 13 caps are generally higher than rent control caps. I don't believe we're talking about rent control here, or at least not exclusively. The original article is about someone's rent increasing by over 400%. I can't imagine how that could be justified by cost increases on the landlord's side. I'm not arguing that the current system of rent control and property tax increase limits is working properly and…
> I don't believe we're talking about rent control here, or at least not exclusively. The original article is about someone's rent increasing by over 400%. Yes, because the unit is no longer controlled and the landlord wants them out. In your eyes, that makes the landlord an asshole. That may be, but the reality on the ground is that there are few ways to do that... and they found one. Does it even matter why? What i…
Does it even matter why?
Of course it does! A big part of whether or not someone is an asshole is about intent.
What if the landlord wants somewhere for their aging grandmother to live so they can care for her? Would that still make them an asshole? I suspect you'll say yes, because they're looking to push someone out of their home.
The Ellis Act provides for landlords who want to take a property off the rental market, so this sort of thing actually is explicitly allowed by law. I think this is a tough thing, because yes, you are pushing someone out of a home, but I think it's a good balance of property ownership rights vs. the public good, as you're saying you want to do something completely different with the property, rather than just finding a way to do the exact same thing but line your pockets more.
Maybe the tenant has caused so many headaches that it's not worth putting up with them for the profit anymore.
The problem with this sort of reasoning is that it's subjective. A landlord could decide that a tenant is a "headache" because the plumbing in the building is terrible and the toilet keeps flooding the bathroom for no reason, and the tenant has decided to withhold a portion of rent until it's fixed. Should the landlord be allowed to evict the tenant because of that? I'd say no. But if the "headache" is that the tenant is constantly violating quiet-time rules and waking people up, then maybe repeated behavior of that sort should be grounds for eviction.
For this sort of thing I'd want the law to stay out of it. A signed lease is a contract between landlord and tenant; enumerate the "headaches" that will lead to eviction. Of course there's room for interpretation, but let the lawyers and courts deal with that.
OK. Then what is it? What's your happy medium, where you are getting money from someone, providing something in exchange, and making a profit without enriching yourself at their expense?
I don't think the exact number is all that important, but there's likely a range of acceptable values for different landlords, properties, and tenants. My position is that a 10x or even 1x increase is crazy and throws the public interest out the window.
When it comes to housing, people tend to buy/rent as much as they think they can afford (and sometimes more). You can argue that this is foolish (and I'd agree!), but that's the reality of the situation. Even doubling someone's rent would likely be catastrophic for their finances. The idea that landowners should be allowed to extract every bit of profit possible out of land -- a public, limited good -- no matter what the consequences, is absolutely reprehensible to me.
Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
#488Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Rentals are for a limited time by definition. If you're going to trot out an absolutist term like "by definition", I'd like to inform you that "limited time" is by no means a condition for being defined as "rent": http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rent I know that sounds a bit pedantic and splitting hairs, but if you're going to base your argument on re-defining what words mean... that's a bit of a problem.
"A bit" is an understatement. You're overtly, obnoxiously pedantic when you reference a single dictionary and ignore common usage, particularly in this thread. Yes, I know, that sounds harsh, but "doing your homework" is a necessary precondition for being a pedant.
Check another dictionary and it's part of the definition: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rent (verb, 2)
In common use, it's always in conjunction with a temporary agreement. You don't "rent (a home) forever." GP didn't make up some new usage to further his argument.
Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
#489Earlier quoted context omitted.
Generally speaking, that's how rent control is managed. The people who dream up rent control somehow never realize that property owners will change their behavior based on how they expect rent control to affect them. So, when a tenant moves out, for whatever reason, the property owner doesn't set rent based on the current economy, instead rent is based on what the market might look like years down the line. So, after…
That goes both ways. Nobody will pay if its too high (you will pay another slightly cheaper landlord, then) and thus landlord has to lower prices. Thus rent control apts are, in fact, at market rate. Its just that market rate is higher than you think it is. When the market is exploding prices will rise regardless of rent control to crazy amounts. People should disclose if they have an interest in this thread, since l…
Yes rent control apartments are at market rate. But rent control discourages people from ever moving, so the market of available housing is significantly smaller, thereby driving up prices for the few units that are in the market. It is an artificially distorted market.
Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Normally mortgage payments aren't allowed to be more than 38% of gross income for someone with no debt which works out to $4750 for $1M/yr, and you generally have to have a 20% down payment, and even then, it's still going to have to be a jumbo mortgage.