5 ms·

Problem not fixed for the tenants. I know landlords of rent controlled units in SF, and believe me, those tenants are making a huge tradeoff. Yes the rent is l

Problem not fixed for the tenants. I know landlords of rent controlled units in SF, and believe me, those tenants are making a huge tradeoff. Yes the rent is low, but forget about ever really liking the place you spend your life in. There is zero incentive to upgrade anything ever. If your toilet is leaking it will be fixed. But get ready to live with 30 year old fixtures, cabinets, carpets, etc. So sure, rent is low and that’s great. But it doesn’t come free. It’s definitely a major sacrifice to be making as a tenant.

romwell 6y ago
Yeah, not scared. Paying $3K/month for a matchbox is a major sacrifice, living with 30 year old cabinets is not.
- rsj_hn 6y ago
  Rent control is why you have to pay 3K/month if you want to rent an apartment in San Francisco. Someone has to subsidize the cat lady living downstairs from you paying $800/month, and it's not the landlord - it's the new renter paying so much that's allowing her to pay so little.
  - jjoonathan 6y ago
    No, it's the enormous bargaining power of the landlord obtained through luck and lobbying. Nice try fobbing responsibility off on the cat lady, who is a comparatively minor cost of doing business.
    - rsj_hn 6y ago
      Your argument doesn't even have internal logical consistency. You claim that landlords have "enormous bargaining power" and yet assume that they are too weak to charge higher rents based on the knowledge that their property is subject to rent control, so that they will be compensated for the risk of seeing a long term tenant. How can this be? Of course they will charge more in rent to adjust for the fact that a percentage of their tenants will be long term, and therefore short term tenants end up subsidizing long term tenants, exactly as I claimed. I get that you don't like landlords. But think this through and try to use reason rather than emotion.
      - est31 6y ago
        Landlords have enourmous bargaining power because there is high demand and low supply. Markets determine price based on that. The idea of you "subsidizing" the old lady downstairs is sickening, as she has nothing to do with the fact that housing supply is so low. Who blocks proposals to build new housing? Landlords do.
      - sparky_z 6y ago
        I'm no fan of rent control, but your argument doesn't make any sense to me. Who is this landlord that's only charging more for one of their units because the other units are rent controlled? If they could charge more for a unit, why wouldn't they? Can you imagine someone who says to themselves... "I could get someone to pay me $3000 a month for this unit. Thank God that rent controlled tenant moved out of one of my other unit. Now I only have to charge $2500 for this one to make ends meet. I didn't want that extra $500 anyway." Rent control is bad because over time it screws up supply and demand, and increases the the rent that the market can bear. Not because it gets in the way of the landlords' natural charitable instincts.
        username90 6y ago
        People are willing to pay more for rent controlled units. So when laws forces everyone to buy rent controlled it screws over those who don't intend to stay long since they pay the premium without getting anything for it.
        rsj_hn 6y ago
        market power means you can capture all of the benefit for yourself - e.g. you charge what the market will bear for a service rather than what it costs you to provide that service. So you cannot argue that you will make a unit more valuable, thus increasing demand for the unit, but that a landlord who has market power will not be able to raise prices to fully capture that benefit. Rent control is such a benefit that makes a unit more valuable, and landlords are able to charge more, fully capturing the benefit to the average renter. This means long term renters underpay, short term renters overpay, the landlord does not pay any more, on average, given the mix of short and long term tenants, but the short term tenants subsidize the long term tenants. So all of these plans to pass laws preventing or obligating landlords in some way will always result in higher rents to fully push the value of that benefit onto tenants, assuming that landlords have market power, which is a safe assumption in constrained areas like San Francisco.
  - romwell 6y ago
    That's not what the comment I was directly replying to was discussing. I am not going into the effects of rent control for everyone else here. Just pointing out that if you happen to get that $800/mo rate locked in, it's a pretty sweet deal, 30-year-old cabinets and all. The parent comments made it look like it's not.
- TedShiller 6y ago
  Well, it is a sacrifice. It’s just that in your case you’re ok with it.

romwell 6y ago

Yeah, not scared. Paying $3K/month for a matchbox is a major sacrifice, living with 30 year old cabinets is not.

rsj_hn 6y ago
Rent control is why you have to pay 3K/month if you want to rent an apartment in San Francisco. Someone has to subsidize the cat lady living downstairs from you paying $800/month, and it's not the landlord - it's the new renter paying so much that's allowing her to pay so little.
- jjoonathan 6y ago
  No, it's the enormous bargaining power of the landlord obtained through luck and lobbying. Nice try fobbing responsibility off on the cat lady, who is a comparatively minor cost of doing business.
  - rsj_hn 6y ago
    Your argument doesn't even have internal logical consistency. You claim that landlords have "enormous bargaining power" and yet assume that they are too weak to charge higher rents based on the knowledge that their property is subject to rent control, so that they will be compensated for the risk of seeing a long term tenant. How can this be? Of course they will charge more in rent to adjust for the fact that a percentage of their tenants will be long term, and therefore short term tenants end up subsidizing long term tenants, exactly as I claimed. I get that you don't like landlords. But think this through and try to use reason rather than emotion.
    - est31 6y ago
      Landlords have enourmous bargaining power because there is high demand and low supply. Markets determine price based on that. The idea of you "subsidizing" the old lady downstairs is sickening, as she has nothing to do with the fact that housing supply is so low. Who blocks proposals to build new housing? Landlords do.
    - sparky_z 6y ago
      I'm no fan of rent control, but your argument doesn't make any sense to me. Who is this landlord that's only charging more for one of their units because the other units are rent controlled? If they could charge more for a unit, why wouldn't they? Can you imagine someone who says to themselves... "I could get someone to pay me $3000 a month for this unit. Thank God that rent controlled tenant moved out of one of my other unit. Now I only have to charge $2500 for this one to make ends meet. I didn't want that extra $500 anyway." Rent control is bad because over time it screws up supply and demand, and increases the the rent that the market can bear. Not because it gets in the way of the landlords' natural charitable instincts.
      - username90 6y ago
        People are willing to pay more for rent controlled units. So when laws forces everyone to buy rent controlled it screws over those who don't intend to stay long since they pay the premium without getting anything for it.
      - rsj_hn 6y ago
        market power means you can capture all of the benefit for yourself - e.g. you charge what the market will bear for a service rather than what it costs you to provide that service. So you cannot argue that you will make a unit more valuable, thus increasing demand for the unit, but that a landlord who has market power will not be able to raise prices to fully capture that benefit. Rent control is such a benefit that makes a unit more valuable, and landlords are able to charge more, fully capturing the benefit to the average renter. This means long term renters underpay, short term renters overpay, the landlord does not pay any more, on average, given the mix of short and long term tenants, but the short term tenants subsidize the long term tenants. So all of these plans to pass laws preventing or obligating landlords in some way will always result in higher rents to fully push the value of that benefit onto tenants, assuming that landlords have market power, which is a safe assumption in constrained areas like San Francisco.
- romwell 6y ago
  That's not what the comment I was directly replying to was discussing. I am not going into the effects of rent control for everyone else here. Just pointing out that if you happen to get that $800/mo rate locked in, it's a pretty sweet deal, 30-year-old cabinets and all. The parent comments made it look like it's not.
TedShiller 6y ago
Well, it is a sacrifice. It’s just that in your case you’re ok with it.