Comment by danudey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by danudey | Hacker News Reader

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If you can afford an additional $200/mo, then that's great for you, but there are a lot of people out there who can't.

Housing is a necessity, and while, in our current system, we allow the free market to provide that, it runs counter to the goals of a stable and healthy society to allow landlords to force people out of their homes arbitrarily.

Like health care and education, there are significant long-term and short-term benefits to treating housing as more than just another contractual transaction (for example, tenants who develop a sense of ownership of their place and treat it with respect and take care of it, vs. 'who cares we'll be out in a year anyway'), or building a sense of community in an area (a psychological necessity, and one which has tangible benefits like reduced crime, which in turn improves property values).

> it runs counter to the goals of a stable and healthy society to allow landlords to force people out of their homes arbitrarily.

Italy makes it very tough to kick people out of a rental even if they decide to stop paying.

This creates all kinds of problems for people trying to rent, as landlords vet them very, very carefully, and flat out refuse people they think might not pay up. They won't come right out and say it's because you're a foreigner, or a young couple that look like they might decide to have kids, or something like that, but it can be tough to find a place if you're the wrong kind of person.

Helping people with housing is a worthwhile goal, but dumping it on landlords is probably not the best way to accomplish it.

"it runs counter to the goals of a stable and healthy society to allow landlords to force people out of their homes arbitrarily"

I don't think you'll get anyone many people that disagree with the premise of stability. The devil is in the details of implementation.

Rent control causes as many problems (or more) than it solves. You get much larger price swings in the rental market, for example, because the effective market size is highly constrained.

No system is perfect, obviously.

SF's rent control only applies to buildings built prior to 1979, so rent control is not what's stopping developers from building new apartment buildings.

Yes, SF is a special kind of stupid.

It still is about 70% rent control, if I remember correctly. So, even before construction capacity/permit issues, 100% of the people who want to move to SF are competing on price for 30% of the inventory. Naturally, the people willing to pay the most for those units get them, so you get massive rent inflation and huge incentives to cater to the luxury market.

> So, even before construction capacity/permit issues...

Which -let's be real- is nearly 100% of the cause of the insane rents in the area. [0]

> ...100% of the people who want to move to SF are competing on price for 30% of the inventory.

You make it sound like people never move out of a Rent Stabilized apartment. I know this not to be true. In my building, we get at least one entire-apartment vacancy every two or three months. Those apartments that are going for $3k+ per month that I talk about? They're often covered by Rent Stabilization. :)

Also, remember that SF's Rent Stabilization is the reset-to-any-rate-upon-loss-of-original-tenants flavor of rent control. So, once any Stabilized apartment loses all of its original tenants, [2] the landlord is free to set the rental rate to any rate.

[0] http://my.paragon-re.com/Docs/General/SixtyFortyImages/3-15_... via [1]

[1] http://www.paragon-re.com/Bay_Area_Apartment_Building_Market

[2] Known as Master Tenants, these are the first set of folks whose names were on the lease signed that established the base rate of that unit for that occupancy period. Tenants added after the initial lease signing do not count as Master Tenants.

I strongly urge you to make a study of the fucked-up residential construction situation in SF and the SFBA before making any claims about the effects of Rent Control/Stabilization on housing prices in the area. :)

I also urge you to read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10551005 .

Oh yes, SF's lack of new capacity is the driving factor in rental pricing, no argument. Holistically, rent control, density restrictions, and poor public transit all combine to form the final price.

And, -holistically- severe hunger killed the starving man who just got shot in the gut, struck by a speeding bus, then set on fire.

But, reasonable people see that starvation is an insignificant factor in the man's demise, so -if they bring it up at all- they bring it up only in passing. :)

1. Can you find an economist who would agree with you?

2. Healthcare and education costs have far outpaced inflation. we're doing something seriously wrong there.

3. You are asking the owner of the house to subsidize your rent. Doesn't seem fair. Maybe her costs have also increased. Painters, plumbers, insurance, taxes, etc all increase over time.

> 3. You are asking the owner of the house to subsidize your rent. Doesn't seem fair. Maybe her costs have also increased. Painters, plumbers, insurance, taxes, etc all increase over time.

Oh my no. Not in San Francisco or the SFBA.

God no.

Five years ago, the place I'm living in rented for ~$1,500/month. Now? It's north of $3,000. Now, either materials costs and wages have not DOUBLED over the last five years, or I am in ABSOLUTELY the wrong line of work, and need to get me a piece of that delicious building-maintenance-and-management pie before it runs out!

Additionally: In California, Prop 13 caps property tax increases to a maximum of ~2% per year. Coincidentally, the San Francisco Rent Stabilization rent increase cap works out to be ~2% per year. SF also lets a landlord pass through all sorts of expenses and rate increases directly to their tenants.

Moreover: The landlord knew the score when they became a landlord. In SF, Rent Stabilization was enacted around late 1970. It only applies to buildings built before late 1970. So, if you decide to rent a building, you ALREADY know whether or not you'll be subject to Rent Stabilization, or if you'll be able to rent at "market rate". It's not like this shit is a surprise in most districts! :)

2. I assume he was referring to health and education in places other than the US. In many European countries they are socialized and costs are far lower than in the US.

3. The notion of costs outstripping rent growth in the Bay Area is so far from reality as to constitute trolling. Owning real estate there is like a license to print money.

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