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How does forcing someone to leave an extra bedroom empty drive up prices?
by pmorici 13y ago
How does forcing someone to leave an extra bedroom empty drive up prices?
- dewey 13y agoSupply and demand.
- jrockway 13y agoLowers the effective rent for the apartment. Let's say everyone in San Francisco rents out their apartment for $200 once a month. Now landlords can raise the rent by $200, since people could afford the rent before, but are now making an extra $200 a month. Meanwhile, you, the person that doesn't illegally rent out their apartment, has to compete for apartments with people that can pay more because they break the law. That's where the angst is coming from.
- pmorici 13y agoI'm not sure I agree; by that kind of logic there should be a law banning two income house holds, working from home, or any other creative way people might derive extra value from there living space surely that drives up the cost of housing as well?
- pessimizer 13y agoThere's no law that says that if you ban one thing that drives up the price of housing that you must ban all others. At some point people must make a judgement about the human costs and human benefits of a thing.
- bri3d 13y agoShort-term tenants generally pay substantially more on a per night basis than real roommates (long-term tenants). Forcing only long-term tenants would thus presumably cause rents to move towards what the long-term tenant market can handle rather than the aggregate nightly rate achievable by accommodating lots of short-term tenants. Naturally the reality is vastly more complicated but I believe that's the basic reasoning behind the "short term rentals drive prices up" line of thought.
- mahyarm 13y agoShort term tenants are also exempt from the laws that protect SF nightmare tenants and having to pay $40k to move someone out. I know someone who has a legal in law unit in SF who basically decided not to ever rent it out because of those stories.
- eloisant 13y agoNot only that, but some owners may decide to go full short-term leases to increase profits. That reduces the market for long term leases, hurting the housing market. Now this is definitely the case for cities like Paris, were the law exists but is not enforced. I don't know of it's true for San Francisco where the price is already high from high paid locals.
- mikeash 13y agoShort term occupancy doesn't have a very good load factor. Perhaps 50% of the time, that bedroom is going to be empty even when it's being actively rented out short term. Whereas if the person can't profit from it and doesn't need it, they may simply downsize, allowing another renter who does need it to move into the unit and use all the bedrooms, giving a much higher load factor. Not saying it's necessarily a good idea, but banning short term rentals can help increase the utilization, and thus the availability, of existing housing resources.