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Comment by mattlong | Hacker News Reader

> Rent Control surely just prevents local families from being muscled out by the tech employees?

Correct. And in the process of doing so, further contributes to the lack of inventory of market-rate rental units available to the influx of newcomers/tech employees.

As mentioned elsewhere in the comments here, this causes huge disparities for rents of similar units within a given building as landlords attempt to compensate for all the market-rate rent being missed from longtime tenants. E.g. I've known folks paying $4,000 while their neighbors pay $400. While I don't have numbers or a study to point to, my experience over the years with the SF housing market suggests the impact of this effect is nontrivial.

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The market would speak anyway. If people are paid enough to pay $50k/year in rent, no landlord in his right mind will charge less.

Google or whatever doesn’t pay based on housing costs. They pay based on business value.

> Google or whatever doesn’t pay based on housing costs.

A number of companies have pay brackets that vary by location, to reflect cost-of-living differences in different locations. I can't tell you whether Google is one of those companies.

and for some reason people are upset about the 400?

So what's the solution for addressing this problem, AND not having local families from being muscled out by tech employees? Because whatever is proposed, if it means that local families have to leave because the rent was increased astronomically underneath them, then it's a non-starter.

Pave Golden Gate Park.

What in particular about incumbent renters justifies making policies that benefit that group above all others? Is there something inherently less worthy about families seeking to return to a city after having left it? About a daughter seeking to move out of her parents house?

What in particular about the tech workers justifies making policies so that they can muscle out people who are already there?

It's not about favoring one group over another, it's about (trying to) reduce volatility, favoring less change over more change when it comes to housing because forced relocation can be tough. Also things like reducing class segregation, etc. Not saying it works.

The solution is for local families to be muscled out.

Hi, let me introduce myself. I am SF's housing crisis. So are many of my friends. We're those "local families" who have been living in SF for 15+ years in rent-controlled apartments. We're still here because the rent is cheap. If our rent went up even moderately, we'd probably move to the suburbs; by the time you hit your 40s, you get tired of stepping over panhandlers and human feces.

If you really want to get angry, let me tell you about the multiple times I've moved away for extended periods and kept the apartment unoccupied as a pied-a-terre. Rent control makes it affordable!

There are a lot of us, enough to occupy a significant chunk of the housing stock. Because we've taken this stock off the market, the available float is smaller than it would otherwise be, so everyone's bidding up what's left.

Would average rents go up without rent control? Certainly. But it would force a lot of us "local families" to make long-overdue decisions, freeing up housing, and driving down the average "new rent".

"The solution is for local families to be muscled out."

No, it absolutely is not.

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