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California Approves Statewide Rent Control

nytimes.com

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Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#81

Post by dawhizkid »

pitaj wrote: post #62
tmh79 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you have any clue about this specific measure? Its limited to buildings that are 15 years old or older, and it limits rent increases to 8% annually, which in practice is about 1 - 3% of all lease agreements in CA, a very small amount. Commercial construction loans are based on the 15 year revenue generating potential of the proposed building, this law was created specifically with that in mind so as not to interfe…

> do you have any clue about this specific measure? Any price control inevitably has negative consequences in the market. This is practically a law of economics. > Its limited to buildings that are 15 years old or older, and it limits rent increases to 8% annually, which in practice is about 1 - 3% of all lease agreements in CA, a very small amount. If it with have such minimal effect why even have it? > Commercial c…

The landlords that jack up rent more than 8% a year, at least in SF, are the commercial landlords of large apartment complexes like Avalon. At the very least this will stop the ones managing older complexes built 2004 and earlier from doing that anymore.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#82

Post by munk-a »

mc32 wrote: post #47
ahelwer wrote: post #31

Perhaps an alternative real solution to the housing crises is the abolishment of professional landlords themselves. Why should we support a system where people can own many properties, each feeding them 1/2 of someone else's paycheck? Public-owned housing is the future. It works in Europe and it can work here. Treating housing as an investment vehicle is fundamentally incompatible with the ideal of housing being affo…

So how is housing going to get built? Are you suggesting that the state have a monopoly on buildings and housing? What process do we use to begin the expropriations and confiscations?

Sorry, to clarify... Are you saying that because we have public transit no one can own cars anymore?

The generous way to read the post above is an arrangement where property ownership can be both public and private - possibly where rental units are majority state owned and private ownership is more concentrated in actual residents.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#83

Post by thaumaturgy »

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 people would leave and demand would go down and prices would fall, right?

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?

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#85

Post by bzbz »

joshAg wrote: post #73
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…

The entire point of the law is to prevent you from being able to make those larger adjustments, though. How often do you replace tenants? And what's your occupancy rate? If you're in a situation where you can reliably raise rent 7% YoY indefinitely without decreasing your occupancy rate, then you were severely underpriced for the market (and you should probably fire that management company for pricing you that absurd…

So then what’s the point of not being able to make those larger adjustments?

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#86

Post by holy_city »

DevKoala wrote: post #22

Rent control is abused in SF. Every engineer I know, who has been living in SF for over 5 years is currently paying an absurd amount compared to their monthly income. I even sub-leased an apartment from a friend who took off a sabbatical, and he didn’t want to lose his rent control. I don’t know who rent-control is supposed to benefit, but it seems broken. Eventually these places end up in the hands of people who kno…

When I was interviewing for jobs in the Bay area I noticed entry level salaries (even at smaller shops) were in the range of 100-120k and rent was like 35-40% of your salary after taxes. Certainly higher than the recommended 30% but it's not that different from somewhere like LA or NYC, even Chicago and Miami aren't much cheaper.

Are my numbers just totally off?

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#87

Post by mc32 »

joshAg wrote: post #73
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…

The entire point of the law is to prevent you from being able to make those larger adjustments, though. How often do you replace tenants? And what's your occupancy rate? If you're in a situation where you can reliably raise rent 7% YoY indefinitely without decreasing your occupancy rate, then you were severely underpriced for the market (and you should probably fire that management company for pricing you that absurd…

I think your argument is contradicting itself at least partially because you say if an LL (landlord/landlady) was already getting market price, they’d price themselves out of the market so the 7% cap is more than enough... so in essence you’re saying the market will tell the LL not to raise the rent... which then means you’re relying on market forces... but you’re saying despite that you need a YoY cap... so something seems amiss...

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#89

Post by Mountain_Skies »

ahelwer wrote: post #31

Perhaps an alternative real solution to the housing crises is the abolishment of professional landlords themselves. Why should we support a system where people can own many properties, each feeding them 1/2 of someone else's paycheck? Public-owned housing is the future. It works in Europe and it can work here. Treating housing as an investment vehicle is fundamentally incompatible with the ideal of housing being affo…

Public housing already exists in the United States. It has had at best mixed results. There has been more success with HOPE VI public housing that doesn't concentrate everyone receiving subsidized housing together but it has been criticized for having lesser density and availability than straight up housing projects restricted to the financially disadvantaged.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#90

Post by olliej »

souprock wrote: post #12

Oh joy, politicians trying to get votes from the economically unaware. If you thought there was a housing crisis, just wait. It's going to be crazy. Here is a different article, more tolerant of private browsing: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adammillsap/2019/09/04/more-ren...

Here's the problem: Prop 13 amended the CA constitution to prevent the state from increasing assessed property value by more than 2% a year. Landlords recognize that the real value is actually increasing faster than 2% and so increase the rent at the actual market rate. Given living costs make up the single largest force controlling cost of living, including for tax payer funded workers: police, firefighters, teachers, etc this fundamentally resulted in a massive tax cut for landlords, and more importantly businesses (who unfortunately aren't impacted by this).

The increasing disparity between taxed value and real value results in all tax payers having to pay increased income tax, which is then directed largely to landlords who aren't contributing their fair share - their properties are benefiting from services that they aren't paying for.

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