The costs you mentioned are associated with the building itself. However, in a city like SF, much of the rent is driven by land value, which has no such holding

The costs you mentioned are associated with the building itself. However, in a city like SF, much of the rent is driven by land value, which has no such holding costs [0]. So they still have a lot of "free" income coming in, as owners of a government granted monopoly in perpetuity (sounds a lot like feudalism...). [0] - Except property taxes, but CA caps their increase, so if you've owned the property for a while now, the tax isn't in line with the rent you can charge.