5 ms·

As a landlord (in a different city where things are sensible and I can raise my rent or evict my tenant any time I darn well like because it's my fricking prope

by afafsd 12y ago

As a landlord (in a different city where things are sensible and I can raise my rent or evict my tenant any time I darn well like because it's my fricking property) this kind of thing makes me really angry.

jcrites 12y ago
I'm not happy with the concept as a tenant either. It distorts the economy and artificially reduces the supply of properties that are available to rent.
k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "I can raise my rent or evict my tenant any time I darn well like because it's my fricking property" Of course you're going to think that - it's in your best interest. But it's not fair to a tenant. Without regulations on evicting people asshole landlords could make families homeless for no reason. I don't think you should have to pay to evict someone but if you rent your property out there should be regulations in place to protect the tenant. If there weren't I think you find the market for rental properties start to diminish. People who could afford to buy (and that's true of a lot of renters) would to avoid the risk of their lives being turned upside down overnight.
- harryh 12y ago
  Your hypothesis about rental markets diminishing in areas without rent control isn't supported by empirical evidence. Quite the opposite in fact. Essentially all studies have found that markets without rent control have much more robust and stable housing stocks.
  - bronbron 12y ago
    > Your hypothesis about rental markets diminishing in areas without rent control You should re-read what he wrote. That's not his hypothesis.
- jcrites 12y ago
  How is it unfair to tenants? Tenants sign a lease for a period of time with a fixed price. The lease's fixed price protects both parties. When that lease is up, the landlord and tenant should be free to negotiate a new price. If tenants want stable prices over a longer period of time, then they should negotiate a multi-year contract with the landlord. All of the protections you're discussing are already built into the concept of a lease. If either the tenant or landlord is not willing to agree to a longer contract, then that should be their right. (Why should anyone be forced to lock in the rental price of their property for years, even while the circumstances of the city are changing -- e.g., receiving investment or decaying; people moving into the area or out of it.) If one party wants a longer contract and the other does not, then the party who desires the longer contract should offer something in exchange for lowering the other party's flexibility. It all plays into the price of the contract. I personally prefer to rent month-to-month because I value my ability to pick up and leave any time more than I worry about the uncertainty of being randomly evicted. Someone who wants a five year lease should negotiate differently and get a different price than I do (whether higher or lower depends on the circumstances).
  - bitJericho 12y ago
    Every lease I've ever seen is on a take it or leave it basis.
    - jcrites 12y ago
      Plenty of properties will advertise "no pets", but you can negotiate with the landlord about that. For example, you might offer an additional deposit against pet damage, or offer to pay a cleaning fee when you leave. I have pets and I have always been able to talk landlords out of their "no pets" policy. If you offered the landlord double the lease price in exchange for a 2 year contract, will they take it? Almost certainly. Few contracts of that type are truly take it or leave it. My point is not that 2x would be fair, just that you have the ability to negotiate, which means the question of whether you can get a contract with the terms you want depends on your ability to negotiate a price for those terms. Many landlords value stability and will be happy with a longer term lease at the same price, or even a lower price. And that's where the negotiation comes in. If the landlord believes prices in the area will rise steadily, then he may or may not want to offer a fixed price over a 3 year lease. Perhaps he will offer a longer lease, but with a stipulation of 3% price increase per year. You don't believe prices will rise that much, so you counter with 1% YoY. It's like buying a housing future. You're locking in the price of housing now as insurance against it changing in the future. That should properly have a different price than a lease with no such provision. If a person believed in rent control, why not go further? Fix the price of property itself so that it may not rise more than 1% per year. If you buy a house from someone, the sale price may not be greater than the last sale price increased by 1% YoY. Would this be desirable? A law like this will have all sorts of negative consequences on the economy. For example, imagine a house owner who no longer wishes to live in the city. If prices were allowed to rise, then he's incentivized to sell his house, cash out on the increased price, and move somewhere else, enabling a person who wants to live in the city can do so. But if prices are not allowed to rise, then he's stuck selling is house for the same price he bought it; he has no incentive to move. Someone is willing to pay him much more for that house, but they can't. This is what it means for resources to be allocated efficiently, and it depends on the ability of prices to change over time. Fixing prices also affects investment. For example, if I believed that prices were likely to rise in some area, then I'm incentivized to buy property there, build housing or fix it up, and sell or rent it to capitalize on that price increase. The rising prices bring investment: I might build an apartment building to take advantage of rising rents. By comparison, if I know that my property will be rent controlled, then that limits my financial upside from investment, and removes my incentive to invest, which is also bad for the economy if it would otherwise happen naturally.
- baddox 12y ago
  In my opinion, the "fairness" would depend on the terms of the rental contract.
- theatraine 12y ago
  That's why you sign a lease. You can't raise rent for the duration of the lease. Your landlord should give you notice that the rent will be going up, thus giving you ample time to find a new place. If a tenant wants more stability, then they should consider buying a place. Also, as a counterpoint, Seattle has no rent control, and the fastest growing population of any large American city yet is able to provide good housing options to people of all incomes. This of course may be due to more liberal zoning laws allowing new housing to be built.
anigbrowl 12y ago
I'm not really in favor of rent control, but your attitude is precisely why it exists. Who wants to enter into a contract with someone so avowedly uncooperative?
- baddox 12y ago
  If no one wants to enter into a contract with that type of person, it sounds like the problem solves itself.
  - fnimick 12y ago
    If there were an infinite supply of housing, and tenants could choose landlords, I'd agree with you. In the city I live in, it's common practice for tenants to work entirely through agents, and a severe housing shortage means that landlords can get away with pretty much anything. We were not even told who our landlord would be prior to signing the agreement.
  - sethhochberg 12y ago
    Thats how slumlords come to exist... landlords that nobody wants to do business with, but some people (usually poorer people) are forced to by necessity. Basic housing isn't a luxury good - when you need a place to live, you need a place to live, and you're limited in your ability to wait until a unit with a better landlord comes available.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - gress 12y ago
    No - it just means that the most vulnerable people end up with the most abusive landlords.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    People often do things they don't want to outside the confines of economic models of perfect competition. That's why contracts of adhesion are sometimes found to be unconscionable.
Someone1234 12y ago
> As a landlord (in a different city where things are sensible and I can raise my rent or evict my tenant any time I darn well like because it's my fricking property) this kind of thing makes me really angry. It would be interesting to see how quickly your attitude would change if you weren't wealthy and were living under a landlord such as yourself. Any day, for any reason or no reason, your entire life can be turned upside down. You can be effectively made homeless and given a very limited amount of time to find a similar alternative place to live that may or may not exist and may or may no be close to your work (which matters when you're poor and cannot afford public transport). The power imbalance in this type of situation is just horrifying. Even if the tenant pays their rent on-time the landlord could still easily utilise the eviction threat in order to control the tenant (e.g. "your apartment is untidy, clean it or I'll evict you." "You went to a protest last week that I disagree with, goodbye!" "Give me your postal vote or I'll evict you."). It might be your "property" but it is someone elses HOME. Their basic rights trump your property rights. That's why regulation has to exist to stop people like you, so people (particularly poor people with fewer choices), get basic rights and the power imbalance is corrected. I'm not referring to rent control: I am talking about privacy of the tenant (inspection notification periods, etc), notice for evictions (e.g. 30 days), written understanding of both the tenant and landlord's responsibilities (or default ones under the law if they lack), and so on. It is your property, but when you rented it to someone to be their HOME part of that transaction is taking money but in exchange knowingly enabling someone else's basic rights. Those basic rights don't start and end at a rental cheque.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  You can be effectively made homeless... You seem to be postulating a landlord that owns all the property. If you don't want to rent to me I can always find someone else. Incidentally, your concern about poor people being unable to commute to work is a bit silly. Most poor people don't have a job but do have a car. http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2012.pdf http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2012.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf
  - Someone1234 12y ago
to3m 12y ago
Sounds like you're forgetting who's paying who, and for what service ;)
curun1r 12y ago
Rent control was an attempt to correct for an even worse government policy. If we repeal both CA prop 13, which freezes property taxes at a certain value when the property is sold, we can repeal rent control as well. But both need to happen. And both are excellent examples of the "I've got mine, f#@K everyone who doesn't have theirs" thinking that's so pervasive in California. If California were serious about fixing it's housing problems, it would: 1) Repeal prop 13. Yes, some grannies would be forced to sell their homes because their property taxes would go up beyond their ability to pay from their fixed income, but the overall effect would be positive. A side benefit of this would be that we could fund our schools again. 2) Cities could repeal rent control laws. If owners are forced to pay property taxes that reflect the true value, there's less likely to be an imbalance between the value they get from renting and from selling the property. 3) Cities should allow the building of more housing regardless of complaints of existing residents. Repealing prop 13 will also help with this, since there will no longer be a direct financial benefit to existing homeowners to block new construction at all costs. But the underlying problem that's evicting poor people from ares like San Francisco is that there's a severe imbalance between housing supply and demand. No amount of government meddling will fix that problem...the only thing that will is correcting that imbalance by increasing the supply of housing.
- afafsd 12y ago
  > If we repeal both CA prop 13, which freezes property taxes at a certain value when the property is sold, we can repeal rent control as well. As a non-American I think that property taxes are an abomination anyway. Tax people on their income if you must, but not on their wealth, especially not on non-liquid wealth. Otherwise you have retired people being forced out of homes they've owned for decades just because prices in the area have gone up.
  - vonmoltke 12y ago
    Oddly enough, I think in the US you would get more support for increasing taxes on wealth and decreasing taxes on income, at least at the lower ends of income.
Iftheshoefits 12y ago
My tenants benefit from a well maintained home, which I pay professional property managers to do, and I make every effort to insure their rent is near the low end of market rates. I do this because I was a renter once, a very poor/low income one, and I know what it's like to be in their shoes. Unfortunately the overwhelming majority of landlords are from privileged backgrounds and have little or no idea what it's like to live a life that isn't filled with privileged middle-class or better conditions. Regulations exist because of attitudes like yours, and frankly they ought to be stronger everywhere. Eviction ought to be difficult, and not merely based on the owners' whims.
- DanBC 12y ago
  I would love to see decent research about the benefits to the landlord of a well maintained property. Because my landlord does (polite!) extra inspections on top of the legal minimum I feel fine telling them when water's coming in or plaster is falling off. (It's an old building. And the derelict building next door causes some problems. And the demolition of an old cinema is a bit disruptive too.)
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

by afafsd 12y ago

jcrites 12y ago

I'm not happy with the concept as a tenant either. It distorts the economy and artificially reduces the supply of properties that are available to rent.

k-mcgrady 12y ago

>> "I can raise my rent or evict my tenant any time I darn well like because it's my fricking property" Of course you're going to think that - it's in your best interest. But it's not fair to a tenant. Without regulations on evicting people asshole landlords could make families homeless for no reason. I don't think you should have to pay to evict someone but if you rent your property out there should be regulations in place to protect the tenant. If there weren't I think you find the market for rental properties start to diminish. People who could afford to buy (and that's true of a lot of renters) would to avoid the risk of their lives being turned upside down overnight.

harryh 12y ago
Your hypothesis about rental markets diminishing in areas without rent control isn't supported by empirical evidence. Quite the opposite in fact. Essentially all studies have found that markets without rent control have much more robust and stable housing stocks.
- bronbron 12y ago
  > Your hypothesis about rental markets diminishing in areas without rent control You should re-read what he wrote. That's not his hypothesis.
jcrites 12y ago
How is it unfair to tenants? Tenants sign a lease for a period of time with a fixed price. The lease's fixed price protects both parties. When that lease is up, the landlord and tenant should be free to negotiate a new price. If tenants want stable prices over a longer period of time, then they should negotiate a multi-year contract with the landlord. All of the protections you're discussing are already built into the concept of a lease. If either the tenant or landlord is not willing to agree to a longer contract, then that should be their right. (Why should anyone be forced to lock in the rental price of their property for years, even while the circumstances of the city are changing -- e.g., receiving investment or decaying; people moving into the area or out of it.) If one party wants a longer contract and the other does not, then the party who desires the longer contract should offer something in exchange for lowering the other party's flexibility. It all plays into the price of the contract. I personally prefer to rent month-to-month because I value my ability to pick up and leave any time more than I worry about the uncertainty of being randomly evicted. Someone who wants a five year lease should negotiate differently and get a different price than I do (whether higher or lower depends on the circumstances).
- bitJericho 12y ago
  Every lease I've ever seen is on a take it or leave it basis.
  - jcrites 12y ago
    Plenty of properties will advertise "no pets", but you can negotiate with the landlord about that. For example, you might offer an additional deposit against pet damage, or offer to pay a cleaning fee when you leave. I have pets and I have always been able to talk landlords out of their "no pets" policy. If you offered the landlord double the lease price in exchange for a 2 year contract, will they take it? Almost certainly. Few contracts of that type are truly take it or leave it. My point is not that 2x would be fair, just that you have the ability to negotiate, which means the question of whether you can get a contract with the terms you want depends on your ability to negotiate a price for those terms. Many landlords value stability and will be happy with a longer term lease at the same price, or even a lower price. And that's where the negotiation comes in. If the landlord believes prices in the area will rise steadily, then he may or may not want to offer a fixed price over a 3 year lease. Perhaps he will offer a longer lease, but with a stipulation of 3% price increase per year. You don't believe prices will rise that much, so you counter with 1% YoY. It's like buying a housing future. You're locking in the price of housing now as insurance against it changing in the future. That should properly have a different price than a lease with no such provision. If a person believed in rent control, why not go further? Fix the price of property itself so that it may not rise more than 1% per year. If you buy a house from someone, the sale price may not be greater than the last sale price increased by 1% YoY. Would this be desirable? A law like this will have all sorts of negative consequences on the economy. For example, imagine a house owner who no longer wishes to live in the city. If prices were allowed to rise, then he's incentivized to sell his house, cash out on the increased price, and move somewhere else, enabling a person who wants to live in the city can do so. But if prices are not allowed to rise, then he's stuck selling is house for the same price he bought it; he has no incentive to move. Someone is willing to pay him much more for that house, but they can't. This is what it means for resources to be allocated efficiently, and it depends on the ability of prices to change over time. Fixing prices also affects investment. For example, if I believed that prices were likely to rise in some area, then I'm incentivized to buy property there, build housing or fix it up, and sell or rent it to capitalize on that price increase. The rising prices bring investment: I might build an apartment building to take advantage of rising rents. By comparison, if I know that my property will be rent controlled, then that limits my financial upside from investment, and removes my incentive to invest, which is also bad for the economy if it would otherwise happen naturally.
baddox 12y ago
In my opinion, the "fairness" would depend on the terms of the rental contract.
theatraine 12y ago
That's why you sign a lease. You can't raise rent for the duration of the lease. Your landlord should give you notice that the rent will be going up, thus giving you ample time to find a new place. If a tenant wants more stability, then they should consider buying a place. Also, as a counterpoint, Seattle has no rent control, and the fastest growing population of any large American city yet is able to provide good housing options to people of all incomes. This of course may be due to more liberal zoning laws allowing new housing to be built.

anigbrowl 12y ago

I'm not really in favor of rent control, but your attitude is precisely why it exists. Who wants to enter into a contract with someone so avowedly uncooperative?

baddox 12y ago
If no one wants to enter into a contract with that type of person, it sounds like the problem solves itself.
- fnimick 12y ago
  If there were an infinite supply of housing, and tenants could choose landlords, I'd agree with you. In the city I live in, it's common practice for tenants to work entirely through agents, and a severe housing shortage means that landlords can get away with pretty much anything. We were not even told who our landlord would be prior to signing the agreement.
- sethhochberg 12y ago
  Thats how slumlords come to exist... landlords that nobody wants to do business with, but some people (usually poorer people) are forced to by necessity. Basic housing isn't a luxury good - when you need a place to live, you need a place to live, and you're limited in your ability to wait until a unit with a better landlord comes available.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- gress 12y ago
  No - it just means that the most vulnerable people end up with the most abusive landlords.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  People often do things they don't want to outside the confines of economic models of perfect competition. That's why contracts of adhesion are sometimes found to be unconscionable.

Someone1234 12y ago

> As a landlord (in a different city where things are sensible and I can raise my rent or evict my tenant any time I darn well like because it's my fricking property) this kind of thing makes me really angry. It would be interesting to see how quickly your attitude would change if you weren't wealthy and were living under a landlord such as yourself. Any day, for any reason or no reason, your entire life can be turned upside down. You can be effectively made homeless and given a very limited amount of time to find a similar alternative place to live that may or may not exist and may or may no be close to your work (which matters when you're poor and cannot afford public transport). The power imbalance in this type of situation is just horrifying. Even if the tenant pays their rent on-time the landlord could still easily utilise the eviction threat in order to control the tenant (e.g. "your apartment is untidy, clean it or I'll evict you." "You went to a protest last week that I disagree with, goodbye!" "Give me your postal vote or I'll evict you."). It might be your "property" but it is someone elses HOME. Their basic rights trump your property rights. That's why regulation has to exist to stop people like you, so people (particularly poor people with fewer choices), get basic rights and the power imbalance is corrected. I'm not referring to rent control: I am talking about privacy of the tenant (inspection notification periods, etc), notice for evictions (e.g. 30 days), written understanding of both the tenant and landlord's responsibilities (or default ones under the law if they lack), and so on. It is your property, but when you rented it to someone to be their HOME part of that transaction is taking money but in exchange knowingly enabling someone else's basic rights. Those basic rights don't start and end at a rental cheque.

yummyfajitas 12y ago
You can be effectively made homeless... You seem to be postulating a landlord that owns all the property. If you don't want to rent to me I can always find someone else. Incidentally, your concern about poor people being unable to commute to work is a bit silly. Most poor people don't have a job but do have a car. http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2012.pdf http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2012.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf
- Someone1234 12y ago

to3m 12y ago

Sounds like you're forgetting who's paying who, and for what service ;)

curun1r 12y ago

Rent control was an attempt to correct for an even worse government policy. If we repeal both CA prop 13, which freezes property taxes at a certain value when the property is sold, we can repeal rent control as well. But both need to happen. And both are excellent examples of the "I've got mine, f#@K everyone who doesn't have theirs" thinking that's so pervasive in California. If California were serious about fixing it's housing problems, it would: 1) Repeal prop 13. Yes, some grannies would be forced to sell their homes because their property taxes would go up beyond their ability to pay from their fixed income, but the overall effect would be positive. A side benefit of this would be that we could fund our schools again. 2) Cities could repeal rent control laws. If owners are forced to pay property taxes that reflect the true value, there's less likely to be an imbalance between the value they get from renting and from selling the property. 3) Cities should allow the building of more housing regardless of complaints of existing residents. Repealing prop 13 will also help with this, since there will no longer be a direct financial benefit to existing homeowners to block new construction at all costs. But the underlying problem that's evicting poor people from ares like San Francisco is that there's a severe imbalance between housing supply and demand. No amount of government meddling will fix that problem...the only thing that will is correcting that imbalance by increasing the supply of housing.

afafsd 12y ago
> If we repeal both CA prop 13, which freezes property taxes at a certain value when the property is sold, we can repeal rent control as well. As a non-American I think that property taxes are an abomination anyway. Tax people on their income if you must, but not on their wealth, especially not on non-liquid wealth. Otherwise you have retired people being forced out of homes they've owned for decades just because prices in the area have gone up.
- vonmoltke 12y ago
  Oddly enough, I think in the US you would get more support for increasing taxes on wealth and decreasing taxes on income, at least at the lower ends of income.

Iftheshoefits 12y ago

My tenants benefit from a well maintained home, which I pay professional property managers to do, and I make every effort to insure their rent is near the low end of market rates. I do this because I was a renter once, a very poor/low income one, and I know what it's like to be in their shoes. Unfortunately the overwhelming majority of landlords are from privileged backgrounds and have little or no idea what it's like to live a life that isn't filled with privileged middle-class or better conditions. Regulations exist because of attitudes like yours, and frankly they ought to be stronger everywhere. Eviction ought to be difficult, and not merely based on the owners' whims.

DanBC 12y ago
I would love to see decent research about the benefits to the landlord of a well maintained property. Because my landlord does (polite!) extra inspections on top of the legal minimum I feel fine telling them when water's coming in or plaster is falling off. (It's an old building. And the derelict building next door causes some problems. And the demolition of an old cinema is a bit disruptive too.)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]