The real solution is to decommodify housing. >The landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for the natural produce of the earth. -Adam Smith
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California Approves Statewide Rent Control
291–300 of 1001 posts
Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
"As in previous polling, the law [to dramatically increase the housing supply] is more popular with Democrats than with Republicans, with 76 and 55 percent support respectively." https://sf.curbed.com/2019/5/17/18629809/sb-50-housing-trans...
Yeah, thats why we're seeing oodles of houses now that the Democrats practically control all of california. Are you trying to argue that the current one party rule is a good thing?
I didn't say that. But the fewer Republicans there are in Sacramento, the better the chances of SB-50 (or something like it) getting passed.
Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
millennials in CA are disproportionately renters, not home owners. This bill will provide millennials with some extra security so they know their rent won't be spiked and they'll need to move.
At the cost of further increasing the price of rents across the board due to limited housing supply.
did you read the article or understand the bill? This bill doesn't impact construction finance because it doesn't apply for the first 15 years after a building is constructed (pretty much all residential construction loans use a 15 year rent projection for valuation). Additionally, the median market rent increase is a few percentage points lower than the rent increase allowed by this law. The main thing the law does is allow people who are being price evicted to be price evicted over 3 years instead of 60 days.
Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing. The parent comment was arguing that because the law now says that rent couldn't increase by more than 7% they were now being advised to increase rent by that much every year (ostensibly because they are now planning to do this), and my response is that it's absurd to claim that anything in the law will change things so that you could make that sort of increase now if you couldn't already make that increase b…
Many landlords are not paperclip maximizers. REITs are, but small time families often charge below-market rents to the long term tenants they personally like or can’t be bothered to replace. They feel comfortable doing this because they can always revert to market rate later. With that long-term optionality going away, some will revert to market rate or as close as legally possible right now.
Sure some absolutely will, but there were enough paperclip maximizers relative to the total available rental units that a law limiting their maximizations had enough political will to actually pass through the legislature even though it's blindingly obvious that putting a limit on rent increases encourages all landlords to always increase rent by the maximum allowed.
Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
1.5% is definitely high, but I have a difficult time believing that it's a larger impediment to owning than the generally high price of property due to lack of supply.
Its a lot to come up with with when you are struggling for a downpayment on your first house.
It is a lot in some ways (it’s a remodel, or repair, etc.) but you’re not going to buy your fist home in Berkeley if you’re working with a tight budget. People are paying cash in some instances.
Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are there really not enough houses? I've always been under the impression that there exists more than enough housing, but a lot of it is empty.
Not enough to fix the housing problems CA has. Not nearly. And if that's the problem, tax empty homes. But even then, even if there are empty homes, building more will still fix the problem. Let those foolish owners leave the homes empty- we can build more anyways.
I really dislike the notion of clearing more land and putting up more cookie cutter houses and apartments for the sake of saturating the housing market in order to get people to rent for reasonable prices.
Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control
#297I'm shocked at the ideological fervor here and the fact that virtually no one seems to have looked at the details of the actual bill. This is nothing like the rent control ordinance in SF that has caused $3000 units to get stuck at $500 rents. That will never happen under this law. The allowable increases are so much higher than "normal" rent control laws that any given unit will catch up to market rates in a matter…
> I'm shocked at the ideological fervor here
Really? This is pretty common on HN. This is IMO one of its weaknesses.
There are certain topics that bring out political rants. One is regulation and another is housing prices in the bay area. This story brings out both.
Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't want it both ways. In fact a land value tax could replace property tax in a revenue neutral fashion, and would incentivize development of property and density, rather than disincentivize those like property tax does.
How do you distinguish land value from property value - especially given that the resource and service usage is not determined mostly by the amount of land, but rather the property on that land. If you were to tax on the basis of land value the immediate impact would be massive increases in taxes payed in rural areas as a byproduct of the necessary increase in tax rates on land.
That's not what happens. Here's an example of when it's been tried: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/3/6/non-glamorous-g...
Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, thats why we're seeing oodles of houses now that the Democrats practically control all of california. Are you trying to argue that the current one party rule is a good thing?
I didn't say that. But the fewer Republicans there are in Sacramento, the better the chances of SB-50 (or something like it) getting passed.
Ummmm...you do realize the Dems hold supermajorities in both houses right? Do republicans have psychic powers they're using to control the Dems now?
Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
yes, and there was a huge well funded study a few stanford professors conducted of rent control in SF in 2018 that is a much more accurate study of the affects of rent control policies. "Rent control appears to help affordability in the short run for current tenants, but in the long-run decreases affordability, fuels gentrification, and creates negative externalities on the surrounding neighborhood." To be clear, the…
It sounds like this is a poor solution for a non-problem then.
its a great solution for people who's landlords are price evicting them by raising their rents by 25%. This law will allow people 2-3 years to find an alternate living arrangement compared to the 30-60 days they have today.