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San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

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Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#21

Post by davidw »

lumost wrote: post #15
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, 1 in 4 family homes in America is owned by a private equity firm now. That's certainly not helping .

It begs the question of how many "neighbors" are actually being neighborly. I'd be surprised if industry groups weren't paying people to attend local-city meetings on their behalf.

See, this is what I mean. These people are doing it all on their own, of their own volition. There is no big bad bogeyman behind them. They're just NIMBYs. They are that way for a variety of reasons, which is an interesting topic on its own, but I've met and talked with them and they have arrived where they're at without some Shadowy Corporation paying them off.

Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#22

Post by davidw »

dmoy wrote: post #20
blackhawkC17 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? That seems like the laughable lie that originated from a certain TikToker.

GP has confused percentage of purchases in some recent year(s) with percentage of ownership. Also conflated "private equity" with all investor-owned homes (which includes a huge chunk of publicly traded REIT stuff too). Investor-owned in some recent year(s) exceeded 25% of purchases. Private equity was a subset of that. Overall private equity owns like... 1-1.5% of housing units (which includes a ton of apartments).

"Investor owned homes" also includes an absolute ton of housing where someone owns a second house and rents it out.

Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#23

Post by dmoy »

davidw wrote: post #22
dmoy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP has confused percentage of purchases in some recent year(s) with percentage of ownership. Also conflated "private equity" with all investor-owned homes (which includes a huge chunk of publicly traded REIT stuff too). Investor-owned in some recent year(s) exceeded 25% of purchases. Private equity was a subset of that. Overall private equity owns like... 1-1.5% of housing units (which includes a ton of apartments).

"Investor owned homes" also includes an absolute ton of housing where someone owns a second house and rents it out.

Yup that's a good point too. Of the ~25% purchased by investors, like 80%+ of those are individuals with a portfolio of <10. Big funds are like <5% of the 25%.

Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#24

Post by kspacewalk2 »

Eumenes wrote: post #19
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you publicly decide on your assessment criteria (sqft, pools, #bedrooms, garage size, etc. etc.), and then use software to help you assign the fair assessed value to each property, how is this a problem? Were some homeowners able to use inefficiencies in how assessments are done to fly under the radar with much lower assessments than their property warrants, and then cry foul when their assessments (and property t…

Assessments should be done when a home is sold, not based off speculative real estate market. This hurts everyone, esp those on fixed incomes.

Okay, maybe I'm making unwarranted assumptions that assessments are done the same everywhere, and property taxes are decided on the same way everywhere.

Here's how it's done in Ontario where I live:

1. Assessed value ≠ market value. Assessed value is determined by some criteria such that sqft, #rooms, desirability of neighbourhood, pools, etc correlate with the final value.

2. Actual value doesn't matter at all. If everyone's assessed values go up 10% in the municipality, property tax bills change by $0. What matters is the relative assessed values. They determine how much of a city's tax bill the household pays.

3. The actual process for determining the tax bill: city comes up with a total figure to be collected. City sums all assessed values of all properties. Divide former by latter to get a multiplier (e.g. 1.355%). That multiplier times assessed value is your property tax. (It's a bit more complicated because they collect slightly different amounts from different property types).

Is it different in California?

Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#25

Post by rangestransform »

Eumenes wrote: post #19
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you publicly decide on your assessment criteria (sqft, pools, #bedrooms, garage size, etc. etc.), and then use software to help you assign the fair assessed value to each property, how is this a problem? Were some homeowners able to use inefficiencies in how assessments are done to fly under the radar with much lower assessments than their property warrants, and then cry foul when their assessments (and property t…

Assessments should be done when a home is sold, not based off speculative real estate market. This hurts everyone, esp those on fixed incomes.

we already know what happens when assessed values are artificially capped, prop 13 has torpedoed funding for californian schools, among other catastrophic effects.

Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#27

Post by SoftTalker »

davidw wrote: post #21
lumost wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It begs the question of how many "neighbors" are actually being neighborly. I'd be surprised if industry groups weren't paying people to attend local-city meetings on their behalf.

See, this is what I mean. These people are doing it all on their own, of their own volition. There is no big bad bogeyman behind them. They're just NIMBYs. They are that way for a variety of reasons, which is an interesting topic on its own, but I've met and talked with them and they have arrived where they're at without some Shadowy Corporation paying them off.

I mean, it's pretty easy to understand if you just look at motivations. For most people who own a house, it's a pretty big part of their net worth. Nobody wants the value of their house to go down, and if you allow construction of more housing that is what will happen.

Local council members fear geting voted out if they make constituents unhappy.

We need both sides to think of the good of the community as greater than their own financial/power interests. But that's very hard to actually do.

Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#28

Post by SoftTalker »

janalsncm wrote: post #9
SoftTalker wrote: post #3

Ignoring the elephant in the room which is that by their own doing the housing supply is woefully inadequate.

Sure, but if you have this kind of underlying issue any extra supply will be eaten up. And that’s after spending a long time and a lot of money to build new housing. Places that use RealPage saw big increases in rent even if their supply wasn’t as constrained as SF.

Unless you have people willing to sit with unrented houses, no it won't. Some big rental owners might be able to afford that but the guy with one or two rentals he manages himself cannot afford to let them sit empty.

RealPage may maximize rents but the maximums will be lower if there is more supply.

Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#29

Post by davidw »

SoftTalker wrote: post #27
davidw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, this is what I mean. These people are doing it all on their own, of their own volition. There is no big bad bogeyman behind them. They're just NIMBYs. They are that way for a variety of reasons, which is an interesting topic on its own, but I've met and talked with them and they have arrived where they're at without some Shadowy Corporation paying them off.

I mean, it's pretty easy to understand if you just look at motivations. For most people who own a house, it's a pretty big part of their net worth. Nobody wants the value of their house to go down, and if you allow construction of more housing that is what will happen. Local council members fear geting voted out if they make constituents unhappy. We need both sides to think of the good of the community as greater tha…

Yes, that's part of it, but I think it goes beyond that, having observed these people close up for several years. I think for some, it's a real fear of change. Others are closet classists/racists who do not want 'those people' in their 'nice' neighborhood. Some on the left are more upset about a developer making some money than about people not having housing. It's a complex subject.

Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#30

Post by falcolas »

SoftTalker wrote: post #28
janalsncm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but if you have this kind of underlying issue any extra supply will be eaten up. And that’s after spending a long time and a lot of money to build new housing. Places that use RealPage saw big increases in rent even if their supply wasn’t as constrained as SF.

Unless you have people willing to sit with unrented houses, no it won't. Some big rental owners might be able to afford that but the guy with one or two rentals he manages himself cannot afford to let them sit empty. RealPage may maximize rents but the maximums will be lower if there is more supply.

Over half of the for-profit rental stock in the US is owned by people or companies with over 25 units. And they are more than happy to let empty units stay empty if it will keep the value of their other units high.

It's not the "1-2 house landlords" driving prices up.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/08/02/as-nation...

"Individual investors owned nearly 14.3 million of those properties (71.6%), comprising almost 19.9 million units (41.2%). For-profit businesses of various sorts owned 3.7 million properties, or 18.8%, but their holdings totaled 21.7 million units, or 45% of the total. Entities such as housing cooperative organizations and nonprofits owned smaller shares of the total."

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