4 ms·

Wow, seems something's a bit "out of whack" or "outdated" when a landlord wakes up and realizes "wait, I could charge 10x the rent!" :) I assume he could't jus

Wow, seems something's a bit "out of whack" or "outdated" when a landlord wakes up and realizes "wait, I could charge 10x the rent!" :) I assume he could't just evict the tenant because of some kind of tenancy laws or something?

zaidf 10y ago
Yup. Rent control laws in SF don't allow that. That's the flip side of rent control: you have people paying a lot less than market price. Or another way to look at it, people moving into the city are subsidizing costs for existing tenants resulting in higher market prices--which depending on your perspective, could be seen as unfair to new tenants or fair for old tenants.
- irq11 10y ago
  The costs of being a landlord don't change that much from year to year - especially in SF where property taxes are capped by prop 13. New tenants aren't "subsidizing" anything. Whats happening is that landlords are making a killing on rapidly rising rents, with relatively fixed costs.
  - 205guy 10y ago
    Thank you for bringing a dose of accuracy to this discussion.
  - zaidf 10y ago
    Landlords making a killing and new tenants subsidizing aren't mutually exclusive.
- youngButEager 10y ago
  The rent increase to $8000 will not happen if the property was built in 1979 or older. The city leaders will nail this poor owner like Hitler for pulling that. "people moving into the city are subsidizing costs for existing tenants" Actually, rent-controlled property owners are doing the subsidizing. The majority of those who can afford post-1979 rental properties (post-1979 properties are not rent controlled (yet!)) avoid owning rent controlled properties like the plague. Those who can afford to purchase the newer, post-1979 'free of rent control' properties are collecting market rents. Their tenants pay them those market rents. None of that money subsidizes the rent controlled tenants. In order to say "payers of market rate rents subsidize rent controlled tenants' way-below-market rents" -- the subsidy would have to make it into the hands of the rent controlled landlord who is being financially injured, being unable to set prices for his business's services. A landlord gets a subsidy from the government -- a cash payment -- if they rent to a Section 8 tenant paying a far-below-market rent. Rent controlled landlords in San Francisco get no subsidy. Not only do rent controlled landlords sustain financial injury, with the government micromanaging their personal property to benefit complete strangers -- the rent controlled landlord's property TANKS IN VALUE. People with enough money to purchase a rental property will NOT purchase a government-controlled property and that lack of demand also financially injures the owner when they wish to sell. Government theft of your personal assets is never fair. If the government said to you "we have a car shortage, you must let anyone who needs it borrow your vehicle and only pay you 20% of what a taxicab costs".... ... or if the government came to you and said "there's a shortage of software engineers in San Francisco, here -- you're going to only be allowed to charge $20 an hour, you know damn well you were gouging everyone at $100 an hour...." Those are UNFAIR. It's YOUR CAR. You PAID FOR IT. It's YOUR PROGRAMMING EXPERTISE. You worked for YEARS to attain it. Any time the government is allowed to seize control of your assets in financially injurious ways -- CAN NEVER BE FAIR. An owner of a 4-plex built in 1974 in San Francisco is not PG&E -- the electric company is a monopoly and it's huge and it's regulated. The owner of the 4-plex is a "mom and pop" owner. They are GRIEVOUSLY, unFAIRly injured -- financially -- by government seizure of that personal asset. Even more unfair -- if the SF government truly wanted affordable housing, they would say the following: "The Costa-Hawkins Act allows us -- the government of San Francisco -- to impose rent control on ALL MARKET-RATE PROPERTIES that were built between 1979 and 1995 - state law, for now, prohibits us from going past 1995. "Effective tomorrow, all market-rate rental properties from 1979 to 1995 that till now have not been regulated -- are rent-controlled." After all -- if the citizens in SF are perfectly okay to have the government cause financial injury on mom-and-pop owners -- why stop at 1979, when Costa-Hawkins allows up to 1995. Maybe that's coming soon....?

zaidf 10y ago

Yup. Rent control laws in SF don't allow that. That's the flip side of rent control: you have people paying a lot less than market price. Or another way to look at it, people moving into the city are subsidizing costs for existing tenants resulting in higher market prices--which depending on your perspective, could be seen as unfair to new tenants or fair for old tenants.

irq11 10y ago
The costs of being a landlord don't change that much from year to year - especially in SF where property taxes are capped by prop 13. New tenants aren't "subsidizing" anything. Whats happening is that landlords are making a killing on rapidly rising rents, with relatively fixed costs.
- 205guy 10y ago
  Thank you for bringing a dose of accuracy to this discussion.
- zaidf 10y ago
  Landlords making a killing and new tenants subsidizing aren't mutually exclusive.
youngButEager 10y ago
The rent increase to $8000 will not happen if the property was built in 1979 or older. The city leaders will nail this poor owner like Hitler for pulling that. "people moving into the city are subsidizing costs for existing tenants" Actually, rent-controlled property owners are doing the subsidizing. The majority of those who can afford post-1979 rental properties (post-1979 properties are not rent controlled (yet!)) avoid owning rent controlled properties like the plague. Those who can afford to purchase the newer, post-1979 'free of rent control' properties are collecting market rents. Their tenants pay them those market rents. None of that money subsidizes the rent controlled tenants. In order to say "payers of market rate rents subsidize rent controlled tenants' way-below-market rents" -- the subsidy would have to make it into the hands of the rent controlled landlord who is being financially injured, being unable to set prices for his business's services. A landlord gets a subsidy from the government -- a cash payment -- if they rent to a Section 8 tenant paying a far-below-market rent. Rent controlled landlords in San Francisco get no subsidy. Not only do rent controlled landlords sustain financial injury, with the government micromanaging their personal property to benefit complete strangers -- the rent controlled landlord's property TANKS IN VALUE. People with enough money to purchase a rental property will NOT purchase a government-controlled property and that lack of demand also financially injures the owner when they wish to sell. Government theft of your personal assets is never fair. If the government said to you "we have a car shortage, you must let anyone who needs it borrow your vehicle and only pay you 20% of what a taxicab costs".... ... or if the government came to you and said "there's a shortage of software engineers in San Francisco, here -- you're going to only be allowed to charge $20 an hour, you know damn well you were gouging everyone at $100 an hour...." Those are UNFAIR. It's YOUR CAR. You PAID FOR IT. It's YOUR PROGRAMMING EXPERTISE. You worked for YEARS to attain it. Any time the government is allowed to seize control of your assets in financially injurious ways -- CAN NEVER BE FAIR. An owner of a 4-plex built in 1974 in San Francisco is not PG&E -- the electric company is a monopoly and it's huge and it's regulated. The owner of the 4-plex is a "mom and pop" owner. They are GRIEVOUSLY, unFAIRly injured -- financially -- by government seizure of that personal asset. Even more unfair -- if the SF government truly wanted affordable housing, they would say the following: "The Costa-Hawkins Act allows us -- the government of San Francisco -- to impose rent control on ALL MARKET-RATE PROPERTIES that were built between 1979 and 1995 - state law, for now, prohibits us from going past 1995. "Effective tomorrow, all market-rate rental properties from 1979 to 1995 that till now have not been regulated -- are rent-controlled." After all -- if the citizens in SF are perfectly okay to have the government cause financial injury on mom-and-pop owners -- why stop at 1979, when Costa-Hawkins allows up to 1995. Maybe that's coming soon....?