Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
This is an interesting topic. Eviction inflicts a disproportionate harm to those least-equipped to bear it. While rent-control inflicts a purely proportional harm to those best-equipped to bear it. But rent-control also inflicts a difficult-to-characterize harm in the form of stagnant rental construction. I would be totally cool with a city deciding to make the first tradeoff as a public policy goal, if the construct…
“Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
511–520 of 628 posts
Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
#512Earlier quoted context omitted.
One thing in your post really stood out to me: What other way is there to live than to treat others neither as masters nor slaves, but as trading partners (in love, friendship, mentorship, business)? You're advocating the opposite of that. As a landlord -- assuming a world with absolute property rights -- you have a significant power advantage over your tenant. A 3x-4x rent increase is not treating your tenant as a "…
A 3x-4x rent increase is not treating your tenant as a "trading partner", it's using your status as landowner to your enrichment and their detriment. In a romantic relationship, either party can decide to leave without retribution. In a friendship, either party can prioritize something else they value more, and the friendship wanes. Students can outgrow mentors, and vice versa. Businesses can fire clients, and client…
For your first 3 examples (romantic, friendship, student/mentor), I of course say sure, either party is free to leave whenever they want.
The difference here is an economic one. It's near impossible to make sensible legislation around feelings (though some lawmakers certainly seem to try). While the ending of a romantic relationship may have a huge negative psychological impact on me, it doesn't affect my ability to live on in economic terms. A landlord kicking me out of my apartment can directly affect my livelihood, and the government is trying to protect me there. I think it's also uncommon for that to hurt the landlord (especially in the non-rent-controlled case), so there's an imbalance of pain. In the relationship case, leaving causes me pain, but staying causes the other person pain. Legislating whose pain is worse or less justifiable is, I hope we'd agree, a mess.
The firing topic is interesting, though, because even the law disagrees in different parts of the world. In Europe, for example, many countries have laws that are very employee-centric, and make it very difficult for firms to fire people. I personally don't agree with the extent that they've gone over there, but I can at least appreciate that people in other areas value employee security over employer mobility and lack of overhead. Even different states in the US have different laws that make it easier or harder to fire people, and define different obligations on the employer when they want to fire someone.
All relationships are a two-way street, and for a fair trade, both parties have to agree, voluntarily.
I'd like to agree to that in principle, but that just isn't true. There are plenty of laws on the books that can give one side more rights to make, not make, continue, or terminate an agreement. For example, a landlord may wish to discriminate against people with certain physical disabilities, because otherwise he'll have to spend money to install accessibility features in his building, but the law says... nope, can't do that.
A landlord may also wish to discriminate against an existing tenant who isn't able to fulfill the landlord's newest vision of his property's profit-making abilities, but there are a bunch of laws that also say... nope, can't do that. I happen to agree with a lot of them, or at least the intent behind them.
Our entire legal system is based on the idea that, on an individual level, both parties don't have to agree... only some representatives pulled from the majority do... sorta. There are lots of laws on the books that I never agreed to, and yet I'm bound to follow them just the same.
But all that is fine, I think. Many laws -- renting-related laws in particular -- are designed to weaken inherent power imbalances. The landlord naturally has more power in society than the single mother who is holding down two jobs. The law tries -- often imperfectly -- to protect the mom from people who would ignore her interests and take advantage of her.
Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
#513Earlier quoted context omitted.
If not for rent control, my studio apartment would be over $3,000 a month. Everyday I thank rent control.
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?
San Francisco's Sangiacomo ("AKA 'The Father of Rent Control'") and his tenants came up with a really great solution for this:
1) Buy a rent-controlled building.
1a) If there's no room for the first phase of your building plan, destroy some of it it and displace the affected tenants.
2) Build the first phase of construction as quickly as humanly possible.
3) Move the displaced tenants back in at the rate that they were paying when they were displaced. These tenants also retain their rent control privileges for as long as they stay in that unit.
4) Build the remainder of the building and rent it out at "market rate".
This works, and works well, as Trinity Place (1190 Mission) has shown us.
Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
#514This person should be grateful they were able to live in a place in such high demand so cheaply due to unfair rent control laws. If a 4x increase in rent is bearable by the market then it's not a sign of landlord greed, it's a sign of a broken system. I'm sure if this person was offered the opportunity to make an extra 5k a month with little to no change in effort on their part they would do so and be offended if peo…
> If a 4x increase in rent is bearable by the market then it's not a sign of landlord greed, it's a sign of a broken system. It's not bearable by the market. $2145 is low but market rate is nowhere near $8900 for a place like this; not even half that. This is clearly an attempt to force the tenant out with an inflated rate. I'm not going to comment on either sides rights here but this rate is not simply "what the mar…
Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
#515Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
If so, is it a larger factor than the insane city-wide height restrictions and strong anti-development lobby?
(If you'd like to point a finger at the folks who obstruct demolition of rent-controlled units to construct new units, I point you to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9210429 ) :)
Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
#516Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've read before that the city doesn't want to build up too much because they want to retain some of their character or something. That's kind of the point. The city has several conflicting goals: make it an affordable place to live, don't allow new growth to change the character of the place, attract high paying jobs, don't widen the roads, attract new residents without kicking out old ones, etc. Rent control is o…
It's worse than a losing battle; it actually makes the housing problem worse. It's good for the lucky few who end up in rent-controlled housing, but most of the people who can't afford $4k/mo rents also aren't that lucky.
If we assume that the NIMBY crowd will continue to block new development and other interests will continue to block increases to the high limits for new construction across much of the city, then what would elimination of rent control do, other than ensure that every renter in the city was paying ~$2500+/month per bedroom?
I have this idea that the monthly payments on the mortgages required to purchase a condo are a pretty good approximation of where rents would be without rent control. With pretty much every condo sale price sitting at or north of $1 million, it doesn't look pretty.
Perhaps this is a stupid idea. Thoughts?
Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
#517Earlier 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…
Is it a zero-labor investment? Fuck no. But, due to the city's completely batshit insane zoning laws and the militant NIMBY contingent you (as a landlord) are guaranteed an income that increases far more quickly than the cost of maintaining it.
It is for this reason that most landlords in absurdly high-demand areas get no love or sympathy whatsoever.
Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
#518Earlier quoted context omitted.
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”
#519Earlier 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…
Tough. If your tenant isn't doing anything that you can evict them for, that's too bad for you as the landlord. When a landlord rents out his property as a home for another, that property becomes the lessee's castle. In all but a very few aspects, that property is now effectively the lessee's to use in any and all ways that comport with their leasing agreement.
> What if the landlord wants somewhere for their aging grandmother to live so they can care for her?
In California, there is a legal way to do this. It's one of the ways that the Ellis Act permits landlords to evict rent-controlled tenants.
The Ellis Act is a pretty fair and just law. It recognizes that landlords are human, and might have real reasons to get out of the property rental market. (Or that they might need to use their only rental unit to house themselves and their family.) It also recognizes that some all-too-human landlords do try to maximize their profit margins despite the very real damage that they would do to the lives of others.
Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”
#520Earlier quoted context omitted.
Vacancy decontrol = new construction can have whatever rent they want. So preventing a landlord from screwing over the current tenant does not prevent housing from meeting demand. New construction does face many other issues, though. NIMBY's, parking regulations, zoning, etc.
Rent control makes people become NIMBYs.
I full-throatedly support new, dense residential construction sufficient to meet SF's current and future housing demands. This will continue to be my position for the forseeable future.
For those folks who are concerned about new construction destroying their rent-controlled units, Sangiacomo and his tenants worked out a really good plan: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9209304