3 ms·

San Francisco seems like a great place to be a tenant and a horrible place to be a landlord. The San Francisco Tenants Union (http://www.sftu.org/ http://www.sf

by trafnar 14y ago

San Francisco seems like a great place to be a tenant and a horrible place to be a landlord. The San Francisco Tenants Union (http://www.sftu.org/ http://www.sftu.org/) publishes a Tenants Handbook that is very fascinating. You'll be surprised how many rights tenants have and how few landlords have. I can't help but wonder if there would be more housing supply and therefore lower rents if the city was more friendly towards landlords. (I'm a renter in San Francisco)

fleitz 14y ago
If Paul Krugman and Thomas Sowell agree then it's probably true. I'm not certain if it is still true but apparently Sweden saw great successes with removing rent control, Sowell mentions it in his intro to econ.
mseebach2 14y ago
> I can't help but wonder if there would be more housing supply and therefore lower rents if the city was more friendly towards landlords. Though experiment: If you were tasked to invest a sum of money in residential property, all other things being equal, would you choose to become a SF landlord over being a landlord in another city?
timr 14y ago
I can't help but wonder if there would be more housing supply and therefore lower rents if the city was more friendly towards landlords." I don't lose any sleep over it. San Francisco is a postage stamp of a city. It's not as if there are vast tracts of persistently unbuilt land, or apartments sitting vacant for months (indeed, there are usually bidding wars and half-hour showings of new rentals). And new construction (since it isn't covered by rent control), tends to cost more per square foot than the older stuff. All evidence suggests that rent control caps prices in the city. You can argue that without rent control, landlords would be free to expel the fabled rent-controlled "freeloaders" who have been living in Pac Heights apartments since 1953. Okay. So rent on those units goes up to market rate, the supply of market-rate housing goes up by a few units, and an equal number of tenants are now homeless, competing for market-rate housing. Not a recipe for lower rents. Another argument is that rent control reduces the economic incentives for landlords to build new units. That's fine, except again, new construction isn't covered by rent control laws. So it's actually in a landlord's interest to rebuild. And it happens -- right now, there are a number of projects underway all over the city. I don't think rent control has much to do with the rents here. The city is 47 miles square, and is the second most densely populated city in the US. Meanwhile, 3/4 of the land area is plastered with low-density bungalows and low-rise apartment buildings -- and that's never going to change. San Francisco is zoned like a beachside village. It's the source of the city's charm, and the reason that it will never have the high-density housing that might actually lower rents. Rent control is probably incidental.
- deleted 14y ago
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- prince_hakeem 14y ago
  "I don't think rent control has much to do with the rents here." You are out of your mind. There is so much supply that is completely held off the market for decades because of this law. I'm a renter and have lived in SF for over 12 years and I can tell you that this law, along with Prop 13, needs to go away. It's completely constraining supply as there are tons of $700/month 2bdrm apartments in this city and many of them get handed down (I almost got one myself). If rents floated freely, like property taxes should too.. sure prices would go up for a bit but there'd be a normal balance of supply and demand and prices would likely be lower than they are today because now there isn't a small subset of people subsidizing the majority of rent controlled apartment dwellers... and yes I live in a rent controlled 1bdrm in Russian Hill that's $1,600 including parking.
- rayiner 14y ago
  > Meanwhile, 3/4 of the land area is plastered with low-density bungalows and low-rise apartment buildings -- and that's never going to change. San Francisco is zoned like a beachside village. True. Shockingly retarded, but true.
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by trafnar 14y ago

fleitz 14y ago

If Paul Krugman and Thomas Sowell agree then it's probably true. I'm not certain if it is still true but apparently Sweden saw great successes with removing rent control, Sowell mentions it in his intro to econ.

mseebach2 14y ago

> I can't help but wonder if there would be more housing supply and therefore lower rents if the city was more friendly towards landlords. Though experiment: If you were tasked to invest a sum of money in residential property, all other things being equal, would you choose to become a SF landlord over being a landlord in another city?

timr 14y ago

I can't help but wonder if there would be more housing supply and therefore lower rents if the city was more friendly towards landlords." I don't lose any sleep over it. San Francisco is a postage stamp of a city. It's not as if there are vast tracts of persistently unbuilt land, or apartments sitting vacant for months (indeed, there are usually bidding wars and half-hour showings of new rentals). And new construction (since it isn't covered by rent control), tends to cost more per square foot than the older stuff. All evidence suggests that rent control caps prices in the city. You can argue that without rent control, landlords would be free to expel the fabled rent-controlled "freeloaders" who have been living in Pac Heights apartments since 1953. Okay. So rent on those units goes up to market rate, the supply of market-rate housing goes up by a few units, and an equal number of tenants are now homeless, competing for market-rate housing. Not a recipe for lower rents. Another argument is that rent control reduces the economic incentives for landlords to build new units. That's fine, except again, new construction isn't covered by rent control laws. So it's actually in a landlord's interest to rebuild. And it happens -- right now, there are a number of projects underway all over the city. I don't think rent control has much to do with the rents here. The city is 47 miles square, and is the second most densely populated city in the US. Meanwhile, 3/4 of the land area is plastered with low-density bungalows and low-rise apartment buildings -- and that's never going to change. San Francisco is zoned like a beachside village. It's the source of the city's charm, and the reason that it will never have the high-density housing that might actually lower rents. Rent control is probably incidental.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
prince_hakeem 14y ago
"I don't think rent control has much to do with the rents here." You are out of your mind. There is so much supply that is completely held off the market for decades because of this law. I'm a renter and have lived in SF for over 12 years and I can tell you that this law, along with Prop 13, needs to go away. It's completely constraining supply as there are tons of $700/month 2bdrm apartments in this city and many of them get handed down (I almost got one myself). If rents floated freely, like property taxes should too.. sure prices would go up for a bit but there'd be a normal balance of supply and demand and prices would likely be lower than they are today because now there isn't a small subset of people subsidizing the majority of rent controlled apartment dwellers... and yes I live in a rent controlled 1bdrm in Russian Hill that's $1,600 including parking.
rayiner 14y ago
> Meanwhile, 3/4 of the land area is plastered with low-density bungalows and low-rise apartment buildings -- and that's never going to change. San Francisco is zoned like a beachside village. True. Shockingly retarded, but true.
deleted 14y ago
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