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Oakland landlord who owns 3,600 properties raises $1080 rent to $3870/month
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- function_seven 11y agoThis title is very misleading, it's only 10 units.
- krisroadruck 11y agoYou must of course subtract cost, the real estate itself, the maintenance, marketing to fill vacancies, the cost of empty non-income producing units (most apartment complexes are rarely at full capacity across an entire 12 month span) and of course the taxes on both the rental income and the property itself (and possibly finance interest on the properties). I doubt this guy is losing money mind you but its not pure profit either.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- danharaj 11y agoThis is great for the 'city', if you define the city as land and property, and not the people that live there.
- Turing_Machine 11y agoThe people who live in the Bay Area could certainly change the zoning laws to allow higher-density/lower-cost housing, leaving this guy (and others like him) to twist slowly in the wind, but so far they haven't. There seems to be some movement in that direction of late, but it's going to take years.
- hugh4 11y agoTwist slowly in the wind? More like make a shitload more money by selling his thousands of properties to developers to put in skyscrapers for gazillions more than he paid. Not that spite or envy should be a part of planning calculations either way.
- Turing_Machine 11y agoMaybe the first few guys to jump in would, but once there was enough housing the demand would fall and the landlords with the (now) overpriced rents and their (now) unsustainable mortgages would be in trouble.
- morgante 11y agoI've seen the opposite. Anti-tech liberals lobby hard against new construction, thereby ensuring the very housing affordability crisis they supposedly hate.
- krisroadruck 11y agoIs it just me or... it being his property he should be able to charge whatever the hell he feels like? If the market can support the rate so be it, if not it'll be what it is.
- joshkpeterson 11y agoSO SIMPLE .
- rhino369 11y agoAnd if someone disagrees with his ability to do this, does that person disagree with tech companies charging huge margins on their products? I could just as easily argue that Google keeps too much of their ad revenue. Should we as a society force them to share with the website owners?
- Eridrus 11y agoWe regulate all kinds of things that the free market does not deal with well. I would argue that Google does keep too much of their ad revenue and the government should tighten tax rules so that they can't just sequester money away overseas without paying any meaningful taxes on it.
- db48x 11y agoOr they need to have more competitors.
- hugh4 11y agoWe don't regulate "things the free market doesn't deal with well", we regulate "things the politicians can get votes and/or fat donations out of regulating.
- eropple 11y agoSo are you arguing that regulations do not exist to address market failures?
- roymurdock 11y agoThe title of this submission is extremely misleading. The landlord, Russell Flynn, is raising the rent of 10 units from $1,080 to $3,870 per month, ostensibly because they are located near the site of a new luxury high-rise tower which will generate more demand for those 10 units. He is not raising the rents 3-fold for all of his 3,600 properties in one go as the title suggests. The article is also very light on details - it mentions that the landlord gave his tenants 1 year notice, and it's doubtful that these were rent controlled units. Developers and landlords are going to jack up prices whenever they can, so this is a pretty common occurrence and shouldn't come as a large surprise. Cities are apt to go along with these plans because it brings in higher income families/individuals which means more tax revenue. As long as the landlord follows standard procedures, the best that these tenants can hope to do is to raise enough hell so that they get a decently sized settlement, and then relocate further outside of the city.
- hugh4 11y agoOr plan their lives better so they own property instead of renting it. Buying property in Oakland six years ago was a great idea. Buying it now is probably still a good one. Renting in Oakland and hoping your rent won't go up in the next decade is a terrible plan.
- erkose 11y agoAin't Capitalism great.
- oldmanjay 11y agoIf I'm reading this correctly, the increase applies to 10 units impacting 16 people. I suppose the 3,600 properties mentioned in the title are to help us hate him more, since he's wealthy, but they are otherwise unrelated.
- finance-geek 11y agoEveryone in the Bay Area lobbying against high-density housing is to blame. Don't blame one guy who happens to taken advantage of this vast collective "conspiracy" to keep property prices inflated by reducing the inventory of housing. And no...i dont think low-density has to do with earthquakes, Engineering has progressed far past that point.
- okigan 11y agoIt's really funny when somebody claims that "you cannot build multi story building in Bay Area due to earthquakes". One only needs to look at SF downtown -- high rises as far as the eye can see.