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

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

#531

Post by davidw » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 9:49 AM UTC

chongli wrote: post #455

tptacek wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit of a snarky way to put it, but this is correct; the parent comment is abusing the term "externality". The consequences of rental contracts for tenants in a free housing market are not an externality; the tenant is a party to the transaction.

No, but there are serious externalities involved when classes of people are driven out of communities.

They perhaps they should consider building more housing. With the bonkers prices there, I bet even with a portion dedicated to low income housing, stuff would still get built, as long as the rules were clear.

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

#532

Post by meddlepal » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 9:51 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…

That's when you purchase property and stop being a renter. As a renter you should have no expectations of being able to live somewhere beyond the length of your lease.

The problem is San Francisco and many other cities haven't encouraged developers enough to build housing to make ownership an affordable option.

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

#533

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 9:59 AM UTC

jsprogrammer wrote: post #207

mmarx wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The landlord was likely losing money keeping it rented at $2145 even if he owned it free and clear. This conveniently omits the fact that there used to be two units in that house, so the actual rent would certainly have been closer to double that amount.

It also conveniently omitted any calculation about how the owner is 'losing money', despite there being a ~$14,000 positive difference between what the tenant is paying per year and the taxes due.

[deleted]

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

#534

Post by simoncion » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 10:06 AM UTC

Russell91 wrote: post #21

whiteboarder wrote: post #13

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

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...

Rent control doesn't prevent me from desiring more high-density residential construction in the city.

Thing, is, even folks in rent controlled units have major life events. You get tired of the person you're living with, get sick of the changing neighborhood, have a baby, or a new Significant Other. In a city that has such an extreme lack of housing, changing your living arrangement to reflect your changing life is somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible.

Folks who are preventing new development aren't folks that are motivated by a desire to protect their rent controlled apartments. They're folks who are motivated by a desire to see greatly increased year-over-year rents on their non-rent-controlled units, greatly increased year-over-year leverage on their existing property, and/or the continued preservation of the look and feel of the neighborhood (read: those with a strong resistance to change.).

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

#535

Post by simoncion » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 10:11 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #141

jsprogrammer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ab…

Rental housing (like garbage collection) is only efficient when there is more than enough housing (or memory) available to meet demand (of tenants, or of the garbage collection machinery). In obscenely undersupplied cities like SF, rents become absurdly high very, very fast.

Case in point. In 1998 (At about the height of the Dot Com bubble) a one-bedroom apartment in my building rented out for ~$500/month. In 2010 (While the real-estate market was still recovering from its enormous collapse) that same apartment rented out for ~$1500/month.

That's a 3X increase in "market price" of a good from the height of a superheated bubble to shortly after the collapse of another one.

SF's rental market is seriously fucked by undersupply.

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

#536

Post by simoncion » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 10:14 AM UTC

brc wrote: post #305

jlebar wrote: post #102

> The few of us who still remain in San Francisco have no choice but to live in sub-par conditions like mold, windows that don't shut, rodents and countless other issues because there is no other choice, because the rents are so high you can't move so you don't. Yes. But the solution isn't more rent controls. That just increases the gap in price between market-rate apartments and rent-controlled apartments. This make…

The rent control creates the mold and stuck windows. That's the point. Supply is the answer. You cannot increase the number of people living in a city without increasing housing stock. Build, build, build. It is the only answer.

I totally agree that SF needs to build like crazy. Every new residential construction that goes up fills me with a little joy. :)

> The rent control creates the mold and stuck windows. That's the point.

Bullshit.

1) Friends down the block from me live in a tall "market rate" tower that is in substantially poorer condition than the rent-controlled building that I call home.

2) In SF, stuck windows and mold are must-repair items for landlords, regardless of rent control status. If you as a tenant can't get satisfaction from your landlord, do the repair yourself and present him with a bill. The law guarantees that you'll be reimbursed in circumstances like these.

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

#537

Post by simoncion » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 10:22 AM UTC

nedwin wrote: post #474

kartikkumar wrote: post #181

So, there's no mention of the tenant's salary in this story. Does rent control in SF or the US in general not stipulate that rent control is also a function of the tenant's ability to pay? Here, in The Netherlands, this is an important criterion in determining what the maximum increase is in rent for a given property [1]. My general understanding of the law in The Netherlands based on having rented once during univer…

if only SF rent control was linked to the income of the renter! Plenty of well paid engineers and execs living in significantly below market apartments when they could easily afford market-priced housing. If the aim is to create affordable housing for low income earners, rent control is not the solution.

Most new places (and some old places in desirable areas) in SF are going for ~$3000->$4000/month.

In order to cover $3000/month rent, average power, internet access, and $400/week spending cash, you need to gross $100k/year.

If you pull in less than that, then you run out of money and get evicted. Notice that no provision has been made for savings.

I know of a great many programmers working for successful Bay Area companies who would just barely have enough money to pay market rents on their apartment.

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

#538

Post by simoncion » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 10:29 AM UTC

cletus wrote: post #174

Landlord finds loophole to end rent control on a unit. Shocker. To those who say it's unfair to the landlord to force rent control on them I say two things: 1. Yes it is. There are cases when legally allowed rents are below the taxes the landlord needs to pay. If the government really thinks affordable housing is a public good, let the government build or buy apartment buildings and offer it rather than having forced…

> There are cases when legally allowed rents are below the taxes the landlord needs to pay.

This does not happen in California. Prop 13 ensures it. Property taxes pretty much never increase. One of the ways that they do is when a property changes hands.

Either this landlord purchased the property with the intent of kicking out the tenants whose rent he knew would be less than the re-assessed property tax, or he's being a dickbag and is throwing out a tenant because he feels that he deserves more money from his long-term investment.

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

#539

Post by impendia » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 11:35 AM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #433

impendia wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rent goes down. The market has corrected itself and all is well. What am I missing? You're missing the fact that rent won't go down -- at least not by much, because living in San Francisco will remain desirable for enough people who are willing to pay very high rents. Only the very wealthy, or those who bought in a long time ago, would be able to live in San Francisco. Of course, this is increasingly the case anywa…

So the SF is just a very expensive place to live. So is NYC, Tokyo, and London. Whether you consider these outcomes acceptable or not, it seems they are inevitable. By keeping rent control, you are actually leading people into believing they can afford to live in a place that is poised to prove them out one way or another. I personally cannot fathom why one place can be son much more expensive than another. Sure, the…

I was obliged to move from San Francisco to Columbia, South Carolina for work and I desperately miss SF. I miss the energy levels, the buzz on the street and present at practically every event I went to.

To give just one example, I tried signing up for improv comedy lessons --- and I found that my teachers were among the best in the world, and that they had a range of lessons available ranging from beginner to master. In Columbia, there were beginner lessons only, and then the instructor flaked on us -- so now there is nothing.

From my perspective (30s, single), paying SF rent was the best investment I ever met. In SC I do indeed own my home --- but I find myself saving half my salary, not because I am either unusually well off or frugal, but rather because there is nothing I terribly want to spend money on.

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

#540

Post by tptacek » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 11:52 AM UTC

lukeschlather wrote: post #479

Kalium wrote: post #471

Earlier 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…

Zoning also suppresses growth in the supply of housing, but so does rent control. People don't build apartment buildings out of altruism.