Regulations in California are generally tiresome but it's ridiculous to claim that regulation could be responsible for things like startup stock offerings making local rents double over the course of a few years. Those buildings are already constructed and if you live in them you can observe that no major remodelings or other updates happen during the time period where rents are skyrocketing. The rent boosts when startups and startup employees come to a new neighborhood are a consistent pattern and it kicks out local residents as landlords find ways to evict them to raise prices.

Meanwhile new construction is way more expensive than the existing boosted rent. You can claim regulation is responsible for part of that, but why wouldn't the vendor charge less than the nearby boosted rents to compete? Did regulations somehow literally eat $1500/mo worth of margin? It defies plausibility.

When I moved to the SF south bay area about 10 years ago, my rent was $700/mo. The equivalent is now upwards of $2000. It's hard to imagine policies that could possibly make it go up that high. Imagine if we had rent control...