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California Approves Statewide Rent Control

nytimes.com

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Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#411

Post by manfredo »

claudeganon wrote: post #332
graeme wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may not change the argument, but he was referring to the landed gentry who owned farmland rather than people who build and maintain buildings.

It doesn’t. The landlord captures increases in value from things like better public infrastructure or outside economic development in the same fashion. Tech workers in San Francisco, for example, have created massive amounts of wealth and value in the city, much of which has then been sucked up by landlords and developers who provide nothing even remotely comparable. They just profit from owning something other peopl…

> They just profit from owning something other people do work and build on top of.

The same way people who own shares in a company that pays dividends profit from work other people do. Those landlords either built the apartment buildings themselves, or spent the capital investment to buy the building from a previous owner.

(to your comment below, HN isn't letting me respond)

So in the end, this isn't about the business model of landlords this is about fundamentally different views on the legitimacy of private property. That's a topic much broader than rent and real estate.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#413

Post by malandrew »

holy_city wrote: post #272
ng12 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's closer to $6,600, and that's without spending a dollar on retirement or benefits. > Do people try not to commute? Spoken like someone who's never tried to commute in SF. Public transportation options are extremely limited, owning a car is extremely expensive.

I mean I'm being open here and saying I don't understand why CoL is so high in SF, since researching it from afar doesn't make it look that much pricier than what I've seen living in other cities. And I commute in LA, it's not exactly enjoyable or cheap. But it's cheaper than living within walking distance of my office.

The other thing to remember is that when rent is that high as a percent of median income it has a rippling effect on the cost of everything else.

Since I moved to Seattle I pay 1/2 as much for groceries, 1/4 as much for the gym, 2/3 as much to eat out. So in the end rent isn’t the only problem. All your costs add up. Add state income tax and the problem compounds further.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#414

Post by dgzl »

jackvalentine wrote: post #376
ralusek wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's just not even talk about the fact that regulation is the reason why housing is scarce, let's just assume California is 100% at capacity. How the hell does rent control increase turnabout? It just let's people who got in at the right time have their status as a resident enforced indefinitely, when there are plenty of people who are willing and able to pay far more in order to live there.

> Let's just not even talk about the fact that regulation is the reason why housing is scarce, let's just assume California is 100% at capacity. AKA ignore the entire foundation of the previous poster's point? Edit: upon re-reading your comment I think maybe you don't know what the phrase 'Turnabout is fair play.' means. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/turnabout_is_fair_play

Thanks for that, I didn't know this term. However I disagree with the idea that two wrongs make a right. Forcing the suffering around like that just creates more problems than it's worth.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#415

Post by refurb »

pcwalton wrote: post #248
refurb wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vacancy rates are empty units that are available as a percent of all units available for rent. It doesn’t typically include units that aren’t available for rent. The estimate is there are 100,000 empty homes in the SF area.[1] I’ve seen an estimate of 20,000 for SF proper. This [2] report to SF Planning states the number of empty units has doubled over time. [1] https://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/An-estimated-…

It's low no matter what measure you look at.

You'd also have to consider all the people that would be happy to rent out their in-law but decide not to because of rent control.

Not saying it would solve the housing crisis, but adding another 20,000+ units onto the market would certainly help.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#416

Post by shuckles »

pcwalton wrote: post #232
neonate wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> She would sublet the place for a year or two and then come back. That's generally illegal, unless the subtenant is paying no more than the tenant is in rent. Every tenant who does this in San Francisco can be, and ought to be, immediately evicted. There is zero economic/social justification for abuse of rent control.

It’s illegal, period. The unit has to be the tenant’s primary residence. Obviously the litigation to prove this in an anti-landlord town like SF is messy and often not worthwhile.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#417

Post by manfredo »

seph-reed wrote: post #279
mabbo wrote: post #43

It seems more and more clear that California, or at least those in power in California, don't want to fix the housing problem. Because if you're a land owner, the only problem is people trying to spoil the good times. All this VC money pouring into the pockets of tech employees, and a larger and larger fraction going straight into landlords' pockets. What's not to love? If actually you want lower home prices, build m…

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.

In shrinking rural towns, sure. In cities like SF that have been adding only one unit of housing for every 5-6 new jobs, there's a very significant housing shortage.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#418

Post by JeffL »

baby wrote: post #246
xur17 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if strict can give equal chances to tenants no matter your background. The GP's point is that it gives equal chances to tenants to stay . New tenants do not benefit from rent control, they instead are hurt by the higher prices due to lower supply.

The supply problem has nothing to do with rent control.

Which is why rent control doesn't address the root causes of the housing problems, and in fact only makes things worse in the long run. It's just virtue signaling without regard to the results.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#419

Post by busterarm »

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…

The rent control laws in NYC aren't even nearly as bad as SF, despite how much they get demonized here on HN.

In NYC units that might be _actually cheap_, as in rent controlled and not stabilized, number roughly 17k units _in total_. And only about 1/3 of those are significantly below market or in desirable neighborhoods. It's almost insignificant and the number of rent controlled units has gone down by roughly HALF in the last 5 years, because the tenants in them are dying and income limits on any descendants usually kick the units out of being controlled into stabilized.

NYC has a much larger number of rent stabilized units, which is somewhere near 1/3 of all available units that are renting at or below $2700 (twice the national average, btw). The overwhelming majority of these are within a few hundred dollars of market rate.

There are about 4.2M housing units in NYC with roughly 30k being added every year. The "cheap" rent-controlled units are a rounding error.

That is not anything like the situation folks in SF are rightfully railing against.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#420

Post by [deleted] »

jonfw wrote: post #386
jacobolus wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YMMV, but in my experience people who use phrases like “Big Daddy government” and accuse everyone else of “pure ignorance” are typically not arguing in good faith.

This is a fair criticism, but attacking his credibility is irrelevant. He had no credbility to start with, this is an anonymous forum and nobody knows who that guy is. A strong counter here would include a counter-argument, and ideally even some support for that counter-argument.

[deleted]
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