Yeah, that happens. I believe the rule is that the master tenant may not charge the subtenant more than the master tenant is paying. http://sfrb.org/topic-no-

Yeah, that happens. I believe the rule is that the master tenant may not charge the subtenant more than the master tenant is paying. http://sfrb.org/topic-no-154-limits-rent-charged-master-tenants http://sfrb.org/topic-no-154-limits-rent-charged-master-tena... One trick is to charge equal rent while occupying a much nicer space in the house. The link above tries to address this. For instance, a larger bedroom with attached bathroom could be considered more valuable. Most common, the master tenant lives in it but collects equal rent from the subtenant who lives in a smaller bedroom with poor light and a long walk down the hall to the bathroom - in this case, the subtenant could probably challenge this arrangement and get a reduction in rent. Another approach, I suppose, would be to "overvalue" the larger bedroom and collect an unusually large payment from the new subtenant, say an 80/20 split justified by the notion that the new tenant gets a nicer bedroom. One thing to keep in mind is that SF is a pretty pro-tenant city. A master tenant who does this can get into major trouble. Of course, if a subtenant hauls the master tenant in front of the board, it'll be war in that house. Buy hey, this is SF real estate, it's war anyway, right?