121–130 of 1001 posts
HN: According to the simple laws of supply and demand, housing prices would go down if we just increased supply to meet demand. Also HN: These rent controls are just going to make the housing problem in this state even worse. I don't get it. If the situation were really as simple as the first statement implies, then if this particular law was really going to have a catastrophic effect on housing, that would just mean…
I am a landlord in Oregon, but not California. The curious, although ultimately predictable, outcome of the new rent control measure in Oregon is that while I have historically had an arrangement with my property management to be restrained in annual rent increases, they are now advising a default annual increase of the maximum allowed (7 percent before inflation). This is because larger adjustments cannot be made if…
Same when a rent control unit opens up in SF, the goal is to push the rent as high as possible since it’s not going up much after that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So how is housing going to get built? Are you suggesting that the state have a monopoly on buildings and housing? What process do we use to begin the expropriations and confiscations?
Sorry, to clarify... Are you saying that because we have public transit no one can own cars anymore? The generous way to read the post above is an arrangement where property ownership can be both public and private - possibly where rental units are majority state owned and private ownership is more concentrated in actual residents.
You joke but many people here would support just that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Abused? When I moved here I heard horror stories of rent increasing suddenly. I did what any sane person would do. I looked only for rent controlled places before moving in.
Certainly it gets abused. People keep their apartments even though they're not living in them, because otherwise the rent would go up. I know someone who did that for 20 years with an apartment on Russian Hill. She would sublet the place for a year or two and then come back.
I don't know the same people that get mad at a corporation for allegedly "cheating the system" in some way don't find this sort of thing offensive, but weirdly they don't seem to at all.
I am a landlord in Oregon, but not California. The curious, although ultimately predictable, outcome of the new rent control measure in Oregon is that while I have historically had an arrangement with my property management to be restrained in annual rent increases, they are now advising a default annual increase of the maximum allowed (7 percent before inflation). This is because larger adjustments cannot be made if…
> The real solution to a housing problem is to incentivize and facilitate the building of more housing. You need to have some degree of control. I live in a suburb close to a tech hub in WA. They built a lot of housing in the past 3 years. And I mean a lot. At least a couple of hundred of apartments on the market every year, after raising 3-4 buildings at the same time, in a town of 20k people. One would think that t…
A big big problem is that we have underbuilt for decades, which has normalized underhousing for younger people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rent control decreases the supply of housing
This phrase is repeated frequently throughout these comments but never with an explanation. I think the opposite of that phrase is true; that in these circumstances, rent control is part of what will enable an increase in the supply of housing. The inequality gap must be lessened for there to be sustainable growth in the housing construction market; this rent control is part of that.
I am a landlord in Oregon, but not California. The curious, although ultimately predictable, outcome of the new rent control measure in Oregon is that while I have historically had an arrangement with my property management to be restrained in annual rent increases, they are now advising a default annual increase of the maximum allowed (7 percent before inflation). This is because larger adjustments cannot be made if…
Rent stabilized apartments have a limit to how much can be charged for them (called the "legal regulated rent"). That amount can only be adjusted (on a percentage basis city-wide) by a government board every year and by a handful of other exceptions (historically: improvements to the building/apartment, major repairs, new tenant in the unit---however some of these exceptions were recently eliminated). The legal regulated rent is sometimes hilariously more than what any sane person would pay for a particular apartment and landlords would never be able to get a tenant at that price (for reference, as an NYC renter, my preferential rent is ~26% less than the regulated rent).
So in comes the concept of "preferential rent": a price below what the landlord is legally entitled to charge. That preferential rent is in effect for the duration of the lease signed. With the recent rent stabilization reforms in New York state, renewal leases on rent stabilized units will only be able to charge the preferential rent plus that year's percentage increase (as decided by the government board). Previously, landlords were allowed to raise the rent all the way up to the legal regulated rent plus that year's percentage.
In other words, before the recent reforms, landlords had a strong incentive to keep the legal regulated rent as high as possible since they can always raise rents upon renewal to that value. Previously, preferential rents were truly temporary and the landlords had no obligation to maintain them upon renewal. Now the only way to raise the preferential rent to the regulated rent is if the current tenant vacates the apartment and the landlord finds a new tenant, on whom they may charge any value up to the regulated rent.
It's difficult for landlords to kick out rent stabilized renters since those renters are generally entitled to renewal leases, but one simple tactic before was to just raise the rent from the preferential value to the regulated value. With the recent reforms, this is no longer a viable tactic.
This rent control is a result of populism - plain and simple. Rent control works for those already renting - and that is about it! Everyone else suffers: those moving to the area, the landlords and those wanting to build more.
Rent control is a thing world wide. It’s not populism. It’s the same concept as free healthcare or free education. It’s here to ensure people can still find affordable places to live. You can’t make everything an investment if you want a healthy society.
Rent control does the opposite. It radically reduces choices and increase on price on people looking for a place to live.
Rent control chooses a small handful of existing renters to be winners. And it makes everyone else a loser. Except it's also shitty renters, because it traps them in place. Sure it gives them a home somewhere. But it denies them opportunity to move to another city, or even the other side of time, to pursue opportunity.
Perhaps an alternative real solution to the housing crises is the abolishment of professional landlords themselves. Why should we support a system where people can own many properties, each feeding them 1/2 of someone else's paycheck? Public-owned housing is the future. It works in Europe and it can work here. Treating housing as an investment vehicle is fundamentally incompatible with the ideal of housing being affo…