15 ms·

In California for example, due to state-wide rent control, it's very dangerous for a landlord to lower rents. I would rather offer 6 months free rent than lock

• leereeves 6y ago
  If a lot of landlords start exploiting that loophole, I wouldn't be surprised if the law were revised to be based on the average rent over a year, or something similar.
  • wtvanhest 6y ago
    That really would be the best legislation. A simple calc of the rent of the first 12 months of the lease becomes the base rent.
  • GhostVII 6y ago
    I think the only effect of that would be to prevent landlords from giving free months of rent - better to lose a tenant than permanently have lower rents which may not be sustainable.
  • favorited 6y ago
    They wouldn't have to change it, because that is factored in. The law states: "In determining the lowest gross rental amount pursuant to this section, any rent discounts, incentives, concessions, or credits offered by the owner of such unit of residential real property and accepted by the tenant shall be excluded." So if your rent is $3k/month, and the landlord gives you 3 months rent-free, your rent according to AB 1482 is still $3k.
    • throwaway2048 6y ago
      That doesn't mean the law cant change.
      • JshWright 6y ago
        No, but it means the law was expressly with to account for this circumstance, so it isn't a "loophole".
  • londons_explore 6y ago
    There are a million ways around that - for example, the landlord could employ the tenant to clean and tidy the property.
    • OJFord 6y ago
      The obvious fix would be to make it like tax evasion (illegal) vs. avoidance (rational behaviour with a morally questionable extreme) - viz. to a large degree the line is up for interpretation, coming down to the spirit of the law and the motivation behind what was done.
  • fiter 6y ago
    This is already the case in Berkeley.
• sonthonax 6y ago
  So a rent reduction by another name?
  • whalesalad 6y ago
    Yep. My landlord did this with me. My rent is still the same amount but we created an additional 'discount' agreement on top of the original lease to lower it by a substantial amount.
• dheera 6y ago
  At the same time maybe it's time for landlords who have been sitting in armchairs swimming in cash to start giving back to the people who haven't been able to afford to live here?
  • eagsalazar2 6y ago
    Not sure why this was downvoted. The reality in SF and many other locations is that supply has been artificially limited and landlords who bought years ago have been making enormous profits. I don't know that I'd describe it as "giving back" but there is a market recalibration that is justifiable and I won't lose too much sleep worrying about landlords in SF who make 30% less than they do now.
    • AmericanChopper 6y ago
      Landlord aren’t the ones imposing the artificial limitations though. It’s the same group who created the rules that would punish a landlord for temporarily lowering rent.
      • thephyber 6y ago
        > Landlord aren’t the ones imposing the artificial limitations though It's certainly not the people moving in from outside the area who want to rent for affordable rates. Landlords are part of the NIMBY problem, but not the only part.
        • AmericanChopper 6y ago
          But they aren’t the part of the problem that is accountable for it. In a democracy you should expect that everybody will be appealing to the government to protect their own interests. The NIMBYs quite obviously do this. But it’s the local governments that implement the NIMBY-protecting policies. The local governments are the ones accountable to the people, not the NIMBYs. I imagine the delinquent politicians are quite happy when people point the finger at landlords instead of them.
  • 6y ago
• twblalock 6y ago
  This is yet another reason in the long list of reasons why rent control is a bad policy.
  • thephyber 6y ago
    I don't disagree, but it's important to remember that when rent control is proposed, it's because some people are very desperate. It would behoove us to suggest viable alternatives every time it's proposed and we shoot it down.
    • quickthrower2 6y ago
      The government could build affordable housing and rent it out at a reasonable price. "Council houses" as they are called in the UK are built very well. They are often ugly, but I'm sure that these days they can be built well, cheaply and made to look OK.
      • stass 6y ago
        The government could start by removing hurdles to build. The amount of hassle one has to go through in California in order to build housing is staggering.
      • dogma1138 6y ago
        The vast majority of council houses in the U.K. are owned by private landlords who rent to the council. No one wants to live in Social housing projects in the U.K. and for a good reason they are all rubbish, the U.K. has had some of the worst designed and built social blocks in the world many of them were demolished within 1-2 decades. Stuffing poor people into high density housing is a horrible idea every study shows that spreading them out is not only cheaper but also much more beneficial to them.
        • quickthrower2 6y ago
          Counterpoints: 1. Not all social housing is high rise or high density. Look outside of the cities for example - new towns. Lessons can be learned this time. 2. Much of the social housing was sold off in the 80's I think, the trick is to keep government ownership of it, not sell it for a pittance and let private landlords profit from price increases.
• bluntfang 6y ago
  excuse me, but dangerous for who exactly? You mean your future returns on investments will be lower on your rental property? How exactly is that dangerous? Is someone's life in danger? If anything, lower rents allow more people to afford housing, making it less dangerous. Let me guess, you have huge problem with the homeless situation, but are unwilling to consider lowering rents? Is that right?