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California Approves Statewide Rent Control

nytimes.com

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Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#881

Post by knightofmars »

34679 wrote: post #764
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 lack of affordable housing always has been and always will be a supply problem. When demand for homes outpaces the number of homes being built, prices go up. Plain and simple. Homes that are built for renting (mainly apartments and condos, but some houses, too) are built for profit. If you make it less profitable to build, fewer will be built. If fewer homes are built, the problem is compounded, not rectified. If…

> Get rid of the fees that can push over $100,000 for a single family home in some counties.

It depends on what outcome you wish to achieve. Single family zoning is backwards policy in urban environments.

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/11/single-family-zoning-...

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#882

Post by proverbialbunny »

EpicEng wrote: post #811
FussyZeus wrote: post #779

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Homes that are built for renting (mainly apartments and condos, but some houses, too) are built for profit. If you make it less profitable to build, fewer will be built. If fewer homes are built, the problem is compounded, not rectified. Arguments like this continue to be made for more and more aspects of our market: pharmaceuticals, heathcare services, elder care services, and now housing. Everywhere you look the…

The reason that supply is not meeting demand is because the market is not free to expand to meet the needs of the people.

Kind of. It's improper regulation. You need some regulation or people die, but when regulation is bad it can sometimes be worse than no regulation at all.

In the SF/Bay Area (and possibly CA as a whole) there is more space allocated for businesses than there are for houses. Likewise, zoning is spread out so people have to commute to work. This is why, eg, the greater Los Angeles area has some of the worst traffic in the US, only beaten by Texas and DC.

The history behind these bad regulations comes from racism. In the 50s suburbia was created in such a way to isolate residence selling safety. I don't want to go into the details here, but it's a fascinating piece of US history.

When businesses and commercial are interwoven with residential people stop fighting for the few places close to work, which stops spiking up the price of those areas. Likewise, when the ratio is right there stops being a supply problem, even if it is the same amount of houses. In CA's situation it could mean less business buildings or more urban housing.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#883

Post by samlevine »

This will encourage landlords to tear down existing properties rather than renovate them, as well as to not maintain them well.

Rental housing quality will bifurcate further, with poor and lower middle class people living in worse housing.

This is bad policy. It's not replicating the absolutely insane policies of SF, but it's still bad.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#884

Post by epylar »

briffle wrote: post #658
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 Hilarious thing in Oregon is some of the 'marketing' for this new rent control law stressed over and over that rent had grown 25% in Oregon over the last 4 years, so 'something needed to be done'. So they capped at 7% per year.. Someone really, really sucks at math...

Yikes, 31% (1.04^4 - 1) instead of 25%.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#885

Post by rcpt »

eru wrote: post #738
fountainofage wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what you do is get rid of prop 13 and do yearly appraisals. Then you just tax the property on what it's worth, and if a landlord refuses to rent, then the tax is now a vacancy tax. The real problem is we're not taxing these properties at the true value they could provide to society, so a massive market inefficiency exists.

A vacancy tax is indeed a bit more complicated. You hint at the easier solution: repeal prop 14 and increase property taxes. A lot. Problem solved. (If you want to be a bit more sophisticated, look into land value taxes.)

I know that was a typo but CA Prop 14 is maybe the only thing worse than Prop 13 that CA voters ever passed.

If the fact that allowing landlords race-based leasing won the vote isn't enough to convince you that direct democracy is a stupid idea I don't know what is.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_California_Proposition_...

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#886

Post by EpicEng »

proverbialbunny wrote: post #882
EpicEng wrote: post #811

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason that supply is not meeting demand is because the market is not free to expand to meet the needs of the people.

Kind of. It's improper regulation. You need some regulation or people die, but when regulation is bad it can sometimes be worse than no regulation at all. In the SF/Bay Area (and possibly CA as a whole) there is more space allocated for businesses than there are for houses. Likewise, zoning is spread out so people have to commute to work. This is why, eg, the greater Los Angeles area has some of the worst traffic in…

Well sure; I didn't mean to imply that there should be no zoning/housing regulations, only that it has gone too far in some areas, which has stifled development and caused prices to skyrocket.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#887

Post by heyoni »

busterarm wrote: post #877
heyoni wrote: post #871

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure you even know my opinion on rent control from this interaction. You asked a very specific question: > is the scourge of housing markets, forcing rents up for everyone and preventing new construction. The tax abatements obviously fuel new construction and bring in a new class of rent control to NYC. Is that a good thing? Or a bad thing? I don't claim to know, but this type of apartment definitely filled a…

I guess the sarcasm missed you completely. I didn't care about your specific opinion on rent control because you didn't express one, I'm saying that your comments to give counter-evidence to what I was saying didn't even have any context in the discussion and will be used as fuel for the anti-regulation people that I said don't know what they're talking about. You basically injected a non-sequitur into the discussion…

/edit never mind, I get it. I actually think you're taking this a little too close to heart. I may be guilty of having missed your sarcasm, but I was addressing a point you inadvertently made. That's not the same as looking for a fight.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#888

Post by nradov »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #622
nradov wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many parts of California are already beyond 100% capacity for certain pieces of infrastructure like transportation, schools, water, and sewers. So I only support more housing in those areas if building permits are directly coupled with equivalent infrastructure upgrades.

Lucky for us, none of these “at capacity” areas are in high cost metros like LA, San Diego or the Bay Area

No that's not correct. Have you used the transportation systems in those areas during rush hour?

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#889

Post by ericmay »

silexia wrote: post #878
verelo wrote: post #834

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Ontario the rent control is even worse. It’s set by the landlord tenant board at a number near inflation, this year it’s 2.2%, the last few it’s been 1.8%. Similarly, i tell my tenants that they should expect the minimum increase yearly as i cannot make up for any lost increases nor can i make larger increases if something about the economics of the house changes. The real issue here is the cost to provide housing…

This is really bad policy... Treating the symptom while making the root problem worse. The core issue is there is not enough good housing for everyone in California. The real solution is to greatly loosen building regulation and make getting permits much faster and easier statewide. Then entrepreneurs will double or triple the housing supply and drop the costs of renting or buying a home by 80%. You could see rents g…

I would argue the core issue is actually overpopulation (or in the case of California too many people wanting to live there but also trying to balance preservation of Nature). And it's certainly much more acute in California. Tokyo is not a desirable way to live, but neither are the suburbs. Too many people means the density gets too high, and poor zoning regulation and poor building incentives get us mcmansions. Every little European city that you've ever been to that was lovely, walkable, and sensible, is the objectively best way for humans to live. You know it and I know it. Loosening building restrictions won't really work if you think that you're going to build single-family homes. It would be a disaster. You have to build entirely new neighborhoods where people can't use cars at all, but I've never seen any level of government in the US allow that. Otherwise you will just end up building suburbs and then the state will build 15 lane highways ad nauseam. Traffic will continue to get worse, it'll be a dystopia.

And you build more and more housing, you'll wind up with 4-lane highways to and through Yosemite or something - that's not at all desirable is it? How would you handle the traffic and flow of people? Giant hotels, McDonalds, and huge traffic stops? It's just not sustainable.

California's problem is that it's not sustainable for the amount of people that want to live there. I think it's a global problem in general too. Less people, and no cars would be most desirable to me.

Sorry for a bit of a discoherent rant.

Re: California Approves Statewide Rent Control

#890

Post by seph-reed »

xvector wrote: post #806
seph-reed wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I really dislike the fact that I’d have to save for decades just to afford a decent house in California. The land isn’t doing anything just sitting there. I am totally fine with clearing it out so people can actually afford houses.

Coming from CA and living elsewhere now, it honestly hurts me how much people take that land for granted. It's so damn gorgeous and rare.
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