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California Approves Statewide Rent Control

nytimes.com

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Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#751

Post by bardam »

busterarm wrote: post #745
heyoni wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think rent stabilized apartments can go a lot higher than $2700. Lots of luxury buildings are taking tax abatements in exchange for rent stabilization and setting aside a number of rent controlled units.

Nope. Units deregulate at $2700. Also there's no such thing as new rent controlled or rent stabilized units since 1970. There's other housing programs like Mitchell-Lama, some that are like what you mentioned, but that's a completely separate thing and a small amount of units. "Rent controlled" and "Rent stabilized" are technical terms in NY.

Your information is correct in general, but there are many exceptions that prove the grandparent correct. My apartment was built in the last 10 years (i.e., after 1970), rents for close to $4k, and IS rent stabilized. See information here:

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/rentguidelinesboard/resources/rent...

Specifically:

"Also, some newly constructed buildings may be stabilized due to a 421-a or J-51 tax exemption even if the rent is $2,000 or more."

A program that a significant number of developers have taken advantage of.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#752

Post by Retric »

bko wrote: post #746
eru wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New homes being nicer is not a problem. It's good. (See https://www.planetizen.com/blogs/100293-how-filtering-increa... ) It's how we upgrade the national housing stock over time. Landlords already charge as much as the market can bear. Coordination isn't really necessary.

> Landlords already charge as much as the market can bear. Coordination isn't really necessary. This statement doesn't mean anything. Consider a game where you try to maximize revenue. You play along with other players with the same goal. If you set your rent too high, other players undercut you. You set the price too low, you leave money on the table. Now consider a rule that says you can at most raise the prices x%…

With rent if the increase is above what the market accepts, units will stay empty. That limits price increases to what the market will accept.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#753

Post by chmod775 »

bko wrote: post #719
xxxpupugo wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. It is weird to see so many people jumping out to lay the accusations of 'uninformed!', 'never works', etc... In fact, the CA, especially in bay area, the rent is already top among this country. 7% on top of that is still a quite sizable increase. And it is hilarious to see those (aspiring) landlords playing the blame-the-game-not-the-player rhetoric here to blame the government not allowing more houses to…

It is uninformed. Note that in a survey of economists ~80% of economists disagreed with the statement below and only 2% agreed: > Local ordinances that limit rent increases for some rental housing units, such as in New York and San Francisco, have had a positive impact over the past three decades on the amount and quality of broadly affordable rental housing in cities that have used them. [0] The negative effects of…

Your quote is completely irrelevant to this discussion, because increasing "amount and quality of broadly affordable rental housing" is not the goal of this law as described by your GP.

The law is supposed to give families enough time to adjust or move away and find affordable housing elsewhere, without becoming bankrupt in the meantime.

A completely different goal. Quoting opinions on something that is at best tangentially related does nothing.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#754

Post by [deleted] »

brohee wrote: post #702
jjav wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is ridiculously profitable to rent out your property right now I'd be curious if you can share specific numbers on where this is true? Where in CA can I buy a house/apt and rent it out for more than the mortgage+insurance+taxes+maintenance? A link to the MLS listing would be appreciated. Every now and then I look at housing costs vs. rental income to consider buying some investment property. But the numbers neve…

renting is profitable if you can rent for more than interest_on_mortgage+insurance+taxes+maintenance-raise_in_house_valuation no? If your formula was the one, renting would never make any sense...

[deleted]

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#755

Post by moduspol »

brohee wrote: post #702
jjav wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is ridiculously profitable to rent out your property right now I'd be curious if you can share specific numbers on where this is true? Where in CA can I buy a house/apt and rent it out for more than the mortgage+insurance+taxes+maintenance? A link to the MLS listing would be appreciated. Every now and then I look at housing costs vs. rental income to consider buying some investment property. But the numbers neve…

renting is profitable if you can rent for more than interest_on_mortgage+insurance+taxes+maintenance-raise_in_house_valuation no? If your formula was the one, renting would never make any sense...

There's always risk your tenant could disappear, stop paying and lawyer up, and/or trash the place.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#756

Post by zaroth »

kchamplewski wrote: post #643
zaroth wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well then they didn’t really incentivize people to build them! An ADU should be like renting a room in your house. Exempt from fair housing laws, and at worst a non-guaranteed lease renewal, if not a simple 30 day notice.

But the point of fair housing laws is to protect tenants. If everyone's building these and renting them with no fair housing protections, you've effectively just abolished fair housing laws without actually repealing them. To me it feels like the sensible thing to do here is to either actually abolish the fair housing laws if tenants don't really need those protections, or have them apply to these new constructions a…

A stance in the middle would apply to just these ADUs specifically, because they are somewhere in the middle between;

a) renting out a room in your house (where fair housing laws already don't apply) and,

b) renting out a fully distinct dwelling unit, where fair house laws definitely apply and serve an important function.

ADUs are always going to be a small percentage of the overall housing market, so lessening housing regulations around ADUs specifically is definitely not the same as abolishing fair housing laws entirely.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#757

Post by YPCrumble »

xxxpupugo wrote: post #685
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…

Well said. It is weird to see so many people jumping out to lay the accusations of 'uninformed!', 'never works', etc... In fact, the CA, especially in bay area, the rent is already top among this country. 7% on top of that is still a quite sizable increase. And it is hilarious to see those (aspiring) landlords playing the blame-the-game-not-the-player rhetoric here to blame the government not allowing more houses to…

Saying "7% on top of that is still a quite sizable increase" is not a fact, it's an opinion. Furthermore it's like my employer telling me "you should take this 7% raise and be happy even if the market dictates a 20% raise. It's still a quite sizable increase".

Then you make an ad-hominem argument about landlords being hypocrites which isn't relevant. Landlords act in the best interest of landlords.

I don't yet know what I think about the bill so I'm reading the HN comments to form an opinion. The points you're making aren't very convincing.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#758

Post by lotsofpulp »

Jweb_Guru wrote: post #693
icebraining wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because landlords start being unable to afford repairs, and you get a bunch of decrepit buildings falling apart all over the city (with all the dangers that implies, not just to occupants, but to nearby buildings as well). It happened in my home town, and it wasn't pretty. Landlords are not social security. It's probably better for the city to forcefully buy them out and create a new management model of the buildings…

Rents are growing insanely fast in SF compare to anything else. The idea that landlords can't afford to make repairs because they aren't extracting maximum rent from the property is completely ludicrous on the face of it. Do you actually believe these arguments?

One possible scenario is if a landlord purchased property at a price factoring in assuming certain increases in rent, then they’re constrained by the debt payments.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#759

Post by cycrutchfield »

foobar1962 wrote: post #697
cycrutchfield wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not a real solution, that’s just wishing the problem would go away on its own. What you are advocating for here is that prices should be more expensive due to limited supply, so that people are forced away due to inability to afford living there.

It's not wishing anything. People ARE ALREADY struggling to afford rent in Sydney and other large cities. They have been getting bigger and bigger in the past decade yet the problem only gets worse (like building highways to solve traffic congestion). The solution is to make other places attractive for living and have hood opportunities for employment. Look at it this way: your house or apartment or whatever can prob…

In a country with freedom of movement? Never. Your wishful thinking won’t change that. But by all means go ahead advocating to build housing where nobody wants to live, and continue your NIMBY policies to price people out of desirable locations.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#760

Post by lr4444lr »

toastal wrote: post #648
refurb wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rent control in SF really is that bad. Rent increase limits are 60% of CPI, so it can’t even match inflation. If your costs go up (utilities) or you want to do capital improvements, good luck getting the rent board to approve a pass through. Want to prevent other people than the tenant from moving into a 1 bedroom? Tough, can’t say no to that, it just has to be under 3 people. Want to move into your own house? Sure,…

Why should I care about the woes of landlords as opposed to renters?

Because the result is that small landlords who can't deal with the fixed costs hassles simply sell out and consolidate into larger ones with more clout with politicians to weaken renter rights and legal resources to fight pesky tenants whom they simply don't want, or create shared blacklist databases like has been done in New York. If you're going to gird up for class warfare, realize that tenants are probably going to lose as long as zoning restricts your options
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