Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

California Approves Statewide Rent Control

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 1001 posts

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#391

Post by algaeontoast »

wait-a-minute wrote: post #108
ahelwer wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a condo too. And if I move I probably won't sell it, but rather rent it out until I move back (while living in a rented place of my own). Individual home ownership is not a problem, it should be encouraged. The problem is people (and REITs) who lever up with a bunch of properties to be fed half of people's paycheck in the manner described. I will nitpick and say that paying your mortgage is not a cost. That is…

You are very confused. A mortgage is definitely a cost. It's only meaningful equity if you ever sell it and get any of the money back, which is not guaranteed at all. And only public housing would collapse the entire economy. Plenty of countries tried this, most notably the commies in Russia and in eastern Europe.

I agree with you when it comes to a mortgage or real-estate only really being worth what it will actively sell for. Real estate by at large isn'r really liquid. I've known a lot of young people who are too quick to take out huge loans and get into "house flipping" only to realize that they're now playing a risky waiting game of when they'll have enough equity to match the cost of fees to actually sell the house combined with the assumption that they'll be able to sell it.

However, as someone who's lived in a large urban area with public housing - I can confidently say that the only real benefit public housing has is reducing the price of high end real-estate in close proximity and increasing petty crime in the area.

Source - lived in the South End neighborhood of Boston proper.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#392

Post by quotemstr »

SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #297
phil248 wrote: post #138

I'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.

>> I'm shocked at the ideological fervor here > Really? This is pretty common on HN. This is IMO one of its weaknesses.

HN is heavily focused on the Bay Area. This fervor seems like a persistent feature of that region's culture and not HN in particular.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#393

Post by ralusek »

jdavis703 wrote: post #341

There's three paths: 1) Rent cap landlords. The landlords will cry Big Government. 2) Abolish single family-only zoning and legalize backyard cottages, townhomes and small apartments. The homeowners will cry Big Government. 3) Do nothing. Watch as more people start living in tents or endure super-commutes that snarl your traffic and worsen climate change.

I'm a landlord and would love decreased housing regulations, even if it decreases the value of my property by increasing supply.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#394

Post by PorterDuff »

bhauer wrote: post #21

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…

Hah, thanks for the insight.

I was simply thinking, Unintended Consequences in 5,4,3,2,1...but that's one I hadn't thought of. Of course people will push up against the limit in order to buffer out market values.

You could easily see rents above where they should be from a market standpoint simply because of the inertia in a system of annual increases.

It also makes me wonder if you are allowed to increase rents if you improve a dwelling. If not, nothing gets fixed beyond the bare minimum.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#395

Post by someguydave »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #83

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…

>Is it possible that California's housing problems are maybe a little more complex than a few out-of-context pull-quotes from Wealth of Nations would suggest?

Yes, which is why a rent-control law is too simplistic to be a solution.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#396

Post by austenallred »

dehrmann wrote: post #375
fuzzieozzie wrote: post #115

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.

> Everyone else suffers Actually, existing property owners benefit. So really is populism--the only people it hurts are landlords and people who don't live there yet .

And people who move

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#397

Post by PorterDuff »

human20190310 wrote: post #322

There is no functioning market to begin with. Housing prices and rent are through the roof in California, yet supply is not rising to meet demand, largely because existing owners oppose new construction. Turnabout is fair play. If owners organize politically to control supply, tenants can organize politically to control prices.

It's worth considering California building code in the cost of new construction.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#398

Post by zaroth »

jdavis703 wrote: post #341

There's three paths: 1) Rent cap landlords. The landlords will cry Big Government. 2) Abolish single family-only zoning and legalize backyard cottages, townhomes and small apartments. The homeowners will cry Big Government. 3) Do nothing. Watch as more people start living in tents or endure super-commutes that snarl your traffic and worsen climate change.

I dunno, a think a lot of homeowners would love to be able to build a little cottage in the back yard and cover half their mortgage renting it out.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#399

Post by cookiecaper »

jacobolus wrote: post #345
closeparen wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So in other words, landlords love to reserve the right to kick a tenant they stop liking out at the drop of a hat for no specific reason, by jacking the rent up as high as they want. As compensation for this power, they are willing to charge well below market rates to help indigent tenants. If they lose this “right”, they insist on becoming pure profit maximizing machines?

> So in other words, landlords love to reserve the right to kick a tenant they stop liking out at the drop of a hat for no specific reason, by jacking the rent up as high as they want.

It's disingenuous to pretend like the landlord is the only party with any control. Landlords cannot remove a tenant at "the drop of a hat" by any stretch of the imagination, nor can they arbitrarily increase rental prices. Rentals usually involve a lease that protects the tenant from arbitrary removal and price modifications as much as it protects the landlord from unexpected vacancy. If you're renting, you should know when your lease is up and know that the landlord has the option not to renew and/or to modify the price. (If you're in California, you should also know that the new law punishes your landlord for trying to do you a solid and keep your rent stable across lease terms.)

On top of conventional lease protections, virtually every state has default tenant protections written into statute that can't be overridden by lease agreements, and that include a default implicit month-to-month tenancy term, providing at least basic protection from out-of-the-blue demands to vacate.

If an eviction must occur, it has to be conducted as prescribed in state law. Tenants overstaying or defaulting on their leases frequently can't be removed without 3-6 months of legal wrangling, which is no fun.

Post reply on HN