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Do you own your own house? Are you rich? I’ve known acquaintances who got de facto evicted without warning just because their landlord decided to make a few ex

Do you own your own house? Are you rich? I’ve known acquaintances who got de facto evicted without warning just because their landlord decided to make a few extra bucks. Were that to happen to me, I would not be able to rent in my current city at all due to the recent influx of wealthy tech workers. (Read: extremely high rents with ridiculous income requirements.) Fortunately, my city has robust tenant protections and rent control, so I don’t have to live my life in fear of ending up on the curb. Some people see that as a bad thing; I guess they think I should save up a few million dollars to buy a condo or abandon my community and move to the boonies. This would be less of an issue with more housing stock, but that takes decades to build. As a city resident inconveniently living in the present, that does not help me much. Obviously, I’d never vote for a politician who would make it easier for a landlord to evict me arbitrarily. And I’d eagerly vote for the same protections for any other renter.

itake 4mo ago
I think you’re leaving details out of your story. If the landlord wants to make a few bucks, then they keep their good tenants (lowers vacancy rate, keeps repairs low, etc). Kicking out good tenants cost landlords money.
- archagon 4mo ago
  It’s pretty simple. There’s a tech boom or similar, a bunch of rich workers move in, rents go up. Landlord spikes rent by 30% to take advantage. You can see this happening in r/sanfrancisco today, for non-rent-controlled units.
  - itake 4mo ago
    Sf is kinda a mess. Sf’s rent control also means tenants can’t leave (locking up more housing, reducing supply, forcing everyone else to pay more), thus continue to discourage rent controlled tenants from moving since moving means even higher prices. The property tax situation in SF is a mess. SF also requires a lot of expensive regulations (earthquake proofing, renovation permits, rising California insurance costs, etc). Also… the unfortunate reality is there is only so much space and the capital markets determine who gets to live where. If you’re not able to keep up in a city, then there are better places for you.
    - craftkiller 4mo ago
      > Sf’s rent control also means tenants can’t leave They have exactly as much freedom to leave as they would without rent control. They _choose_ to stay because rent control has made it advantageous to stay. The way you phrased it implies you're suggesting this is a bad thing for renters but that is strictly a positive. Without rent control they'd have zero affordable options, with rent control they have 1 affordable option. Woe to the inhabitants of rent controlled apartments with their golden handcuffs.
      - itake 4mo ago
        Rent control drives up rent prices for everyone. So yes, if you have rent control in a city, it would create an environment with zero affordable options.
        inigyou 4mo ago
        Obviously it does not drive up the rent price of the person who is paying less rent. That's the whole point. The residents of SF have voted to prevent you from taking their apartments, so if you don't want to bid very competitively for an already empty apartment, you'll just have to take an apartment somewhere else.
    - majormajor 4mo ago
      > Sf’s rent control also means tenants can’t leave (locking up more housing, reducing supply, forcing everyone else to pay more), thus continue to discourage rent controlled tenants from moving since moving means even higher prices. This is disingenuous. In the absence of rent control (or prop 13 for property owners) you famously get a situation where tenants ALSO can't afford to leave... but have to anyway. Why should anyone be forced to leave just because someone richer wants to move in? You don't have to support someone being unable to evict people who don't pay to believe that there should be limits on how much landlords (or the state, in the case of prop 13) should be able to force current residents to leave just to make a quick buck.
      - 4mo ago
- kelnos 4mo ago
  And yet many landlords kick out good tenants, and take the risk that a new tenant that's willing to pay 30% more turns out to be a bad one. Not sure why you're surprised: this sort of thing has been widespread for years in cities (like SF) where demand outstrips supply.
sp527 4mo ago
> I guess they think I should save up a few million dollars to buy a condo or abandon my community and move to the boonies. If you can't afford to live in your city, what distinguishes you from the people in the boonies? Why should they be relegated to the boonies while you successfully game the system?
- archagon 4mo ago
  I can afford to live in my city. I’m living in it right now! The nice thing is that I don’t get pushed out by arbitrary economic fluctuations completely out of my control.
  - sp527 4mo ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but your comment suggested you'd be unable to afford market rent.
    - archagon 4mo ago
      I can afford to live in my city because my landlord isn’t able to tack an extra $2000 to my rent due to the sudden influx of AI bros.
      - sp527 4mo ago
        Pity the boonyman who was afforded no such luxury
        inigyou 4mo ago
        Are AI bros infesting the boonies now
  - ekelsen 4mo ago
    If only we could all get free protection from economic forces we don't control. That kind of insurance is usually pretty expensive. Why should you get it for free?
nradov 4mo ago
It sounds like you're living in a badly governed city. Have you considered voting for politicians with an abundance agenda? Or moving to a city with more intelligent housing policies such as Dallas?
- majormajor 4mo ago
  NIMBYism and single-family zoning are alive and thriving in Dallas; what Dallas has is this thing called a huge-fucking-flat-prairie all around it that means Frisco, Addison, etc, have been able to add to the low-density car-centric sprawl and help keep prices down some. (But even then, plenty of Dallas residents have been upset in the past decade by what happens to rental prices when a bunch of higher-income folks move to town!) One wonders why the people who don't want to have to leave a city like San Fransisco just cause some other people have more money than them and want to raise their rents out of their reach are the ones who should move to Texas. Why shouldn't the would-be newcomers just be the ones go to all those cookie-cutter new developments? If you jumped back in time 20 years ago and were able to ensure that YCombinator, OpenAI, Anthropic, Salesforce, and other high-paper-valuation companies, and they all had imported their from-out-of-town high-income-or-equity-leveraging employees to McKinney, Texas, not much materially would prevent those companies from still doing what they did. But people who already lived in SF or on the peninsula but didn't own much land there would have a materially better standard of living due to their costs not running away from their existing incomes. And the Texas burbs happily would've built a shit-ton of houses and apartments for the startup workers, because of the aforementioned giant quantities of near-empty land. Greenfield businesses for greenfield real-estate. Much better fit than force-transforming cities.
  - lmm 4mo ago
    > One wonders why the people who don't want to have to leave a city like San Fransisco just cause some other people have more money than them and want to raise their rents out of their reach are the ones who should move to Texas. Why shouldn't the would-be newcomers just be the ones go to all those cookie-cutter new developments? Because my money should be just as good as yours? Why should you get a huge discount just because of where you were lucky to be born? I'm not asking for a better deal than you, just fair competition between equals. > And the Texas burbs happily would've built a shit-ton of houses and apartments for the startup workers, because of the aforementioned giant quantities of near-empty land. For first 100, sure. Then they'd complain about the newcomers changing the character of the place and ban new buildings. The same thing happens everywhere, you can't route around it by starting your own new city because as soon as you've built any kind of community you have the same NIMBY problems as every other city.

itake 4mo ago

I think you’re leaving details out of your story. If the landlord wants to make a few bucks, then they keep their good tenants (lowers vacancy rate, keeps repairs low, etc). Kicking out good tenants cost landlords money.

archagon 4mo ago
It’s pretty simple. There’s a tech boom or similar, a bunch of rich workers move in, rents go up. Landlord spikes rent by 30% to take advantage. You can see this happening in r/sanfrancisco today, for non-rent-controlled units.
- itake 4mo ago
  Sf is kinda a mess. Sf’s rent control also means tenants can’t leave (locking up more housing, reducing supply, forcing everyone else to pay more), thus continue to discourage rent controlled tenants from moving since moving means even higher prices. The property tax situation in SF is a mess. SF also requires a lot of expensive regulations (earthquake proofing, renovation permits, rising California insurance costs, etc). Also… the unfortunate reality is there is only so much space and the capital markets determine who gets to live where. If you’re not able to keep up in a city, then there are better places for you.
  - craftkiller 4mo ago
    > Sf’s rent control also means tenants can’t leave They have exactly as much freedom to leave as they would without rent control. They _choose_ to stay because rent control has made it advantageous to stay. The way you phrased it implies you're suggesting this is a bad thing for renters but that is strictly a positive. Without rent control they'd have zero affordable options, with rent control they have 1 affordable option. Woe to the inhabitants of rent controlled apartments with their golden handcuffs.
    - itake 4mo ago
      Rent control drives up rent prices for everyone. So yes, if you have rent control in a city, it would create an environment with zero affordable options.
      - inigyou 4mo ago
        Obviously it does not drive up the rent price of the person who is paying less rent. That's the whole point. The residents of SF have voted to prevent you from taking their apartments, so if you don't want to bid very competitively for an already empty apartment, you'll just have to take an apartment somewhere else.
  - majormajor 4mo ago
    > Sf’s rent control also means tenants can’t leave (locking up more housing, reducing supply, forcing everyone else to pay more), thus continue to discourage rent controlled tenants from moving since moving means even higher prices. This is disingenuous. In the absence of rent control (or prop 13 for property owners) you famously get a situation where tenants ALSO can't afford to leave... but have to anyway. Why should anyone be forced to leave just because someone richer wants to move in? You don't have to support someone being unable to evict people who don't pay to believe that there should be limits on how much landlords (or the state, in the case of prop 13) should be able to force current residents to leave just to make a quick buck.
    - 4mo ago
kelnos 4mo ago
And yet many landlords kick out good tenants, and take the risk that a new tenant that's willing to pay 30% more turns out to be a bad one. Not sure why you're surprised: this sort of thing has been widespread for years in cities (like SF) where demand outstrips supply.

sp527 4mo ago

> I guess they think I should save up a few million dollars to buy a condo or abandon my community and move to the boonies. If you can't afford to live in your city, what distinguishes you from the people in the boonies? Why should they be relegated to the boonies while you successfully game the system?

archagon 4mo ago
I can afford to live in my city. I’m living in it right now! The nice thing is that I don’t get pushed out by arbitrary economic fluctuations completely out of my control.
- sp527 4mo ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but your comment suggested you'd be unable to afford market rent.
  - archagon 4mo ago
    I can afford to live in my city because my landlord isn’t able to tack an extra $2000 to my rent due to the sudden influx of AI bros.
    - sp527 4mo ago
      Pity the boonyman who was afforded no such luxury
      - inigyou 4mo ago
        Are AI bros infesting the boonies now
- ekelsen 4mo ago
  If only we could all get free protection from economic forces we don't control. That kind of insurance is usually pretty expensive. Why should you get it for free?

nradov 4mo ago

It sounds like you're living in a badly governed city. Have you considered voting for politicians with an abundance agenda? Or moving to a city with more intelligent housing policies such as Dallas?

majormajor 4mo ago
NIMBYism and single-family zoning are alive and thriving in Dallas; what Dallas has is this thing called a huge-fucking-flat-prairie all around it that means Frisco, Addison, etc, have been able to add to the low-density car-centric sprawl and help keep prices down some. (But even then, plenty of Dallas residents have been upset in the past decade by what happens to rental prices when a bunch of higher-income folks move to town!) One wonders why the people who don't want to have to leave a city like San Fransisco just cause some other people have more money than them and want to raise their rents out of their reach are the ones who should move to Texas. Why shouldn't the would-be newcomers just be the ones go to all those cookie-cutter new developments? If you jumped back in time 20 years ago and were able to ensure that YCombinator, OpenAI, Anthropic, Salesforce, and other high-paper-valuation companies, and they all had imported their from-out-of-town high-income-or-equity-leveraging employees to McKinney, Texas, not much materially would prevent those companies from still doing what they did. But people who already lived in SF or on the peninsula but didn't own much land there would have a materially better standard of living due to their costs not running away from their existing incomes. And the Texas burbs happily would've built a shit-ton of houses and apartments for the startup workers, because of the aforementioned giant quantities of near-empty land. Greenfield businesses for greenfield real-estate. Much better fit than force-transforming cities.
- lmm 4mo ago
  > One wonders why the people who don't want to have to leave a city like San Fransisco just cause some other people have more money than them and want to raise their rents out of their reach are the ones who should move to Texas. Why shouldn't the would-be newcomers just be the ones go to all those cookie-cutter new developments? Because my money should be just as good as yours? Why should you get a huge discount just because of where you were lucky to be born? I'm not asking for a better deal than you, just fair competition between equals. > And the Texas burbs happily would've built a shit-ton of houses and apartments for the startup workers, because of the aforementioned giant quantities of near-empty land. For first 100, sure. Then they'd complain about the newcomers changing the character of the place and ban new buildings. The same thing happens everywhere, you can't route around it by starting your own new city because as soon as you've built any kind of community you have the same NIMBY problems as every other city.