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Comment by DevKoala | Hacker News Reader

Rent control is abused in SF. Every engineer I know, who has been living in SF for over 5 years is currently paying an absurd amount compared to their monthly income. I even sub-leased an apartment from a friend who took off a sabbatical, and he didn’t want to lose his rent control.

I don’t know who rent-control is supposed to benefit, but it seems broken. Eventually these places end up in the hands of people who know how to game the system. Just build more housing and the incentive will go away.

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Rent wasn’t that much cheaper 5 years ago, if at all, save renting one of the luxury high rises.

When I was interviewing for jobs in the Bay area I noticed entry level salaries (even at smaller shops) were in the range of 100-120k and rent was like 35-40% of your salary after taxes. Certainly higher than the recommended 30% but it's not that different from somewhere like LA or NYC, even Chicago and Miami aren't much cheaper.

Are my numbers just totally off?

$120,000 comes out to around $6k/mo. A mediocre studio in SF is pretty close to $3k.

After taxes it's a bit under $6,900 so 40% of that is ~$2,700. Browsing Zillow/Apartments.com/Padmapper shows several thousand listings for studios under $2k and single bedrooms around $2.2-2.7k, depending on area. SF proper seems pretty tiny and the most expensive, is everyone just trying to cram in there? Do people try not to commute?

It's closer to $6,600, and that's without spending a dollar on retirement or benefits.

> Do people try not to commute?

Spoken like someone who's never tried to commute in SF. Public transportation options are extremely limited, owning a car is extremely expensive.

I mean I'm being open here and saying I don't understand why CoL is so high in SF, since researching it from afar doesn't make it look that much pricier than what I've seen living in other cities.

And I commute in LA, it's not exactly enjoyable or cheap. But it's cheaper than living within walking distance of my office.

The other thing to remember is that when rent is that high as a percent of median income it has a rippling effect on the cost of everything else.

Since I moved to Seattle I pay 1/2 as much for groceries, 1/4 as much for the gym, 2/3 as much to eat out. So in the end rent isn’t the only problem. All your costs add up. Add state income tax and the problem compounds further.

You are right that most casual analyses overstate the real cost of living in SF. A Bart commute in the Daly City direction, or Oakland, or a drive in from Pacifica all get you much more reasonable cost / commute trade offs for jobs in the city. Certainly in absolute prices remain absurd.

I can confirm that as of December-January it was possible to find a decent 900-1000 sq ft house with two bedrooms in southern SF (Visitacion Valley or Crocker/Amazon, say) or Daly City, near BART, for $3000 a month. Still more expensive than than the comparable in New York, where a two-bedroom apartment in Jersey City with a comparable commute to lower Manhattan was $2300.

The rent figures are an exaggeration. I lived in a mediocre studio for between $1.8k and $1.9k. $3k will get you a mediocre 1 bedroom or a pretty good studio.

Remember to factor in taxes. You will only see 6k a month cash on 120k a year after maxing our your 401k. A tiny studio will go from 2.5 to 3.5k last I checked.

It benefits the politicians who buy votes in favor of a one-time lump sum wealth transfer to renters.

> a friend who took off a sabbatical

Perhaps you don't realize how good you have it out there.

Abused? When I moved here I heard horror stories of rent increasing suddenly. I did what any sane person would do. I looked only for rent controlled places before moving in.

Certainly it gets abused. People keep their apartments even though they're not living in them, because otherwise the rent would go up. I know someone who did that for 20 years with an apartment on Russian Hill. She would sublet the place for a year or two and then come back.

I know several people that do that: luck into a sweet rent control deal even though you were wealthy enough to afford market rates anyway, never, ever give up the lease even after you've essentially moved away anyway and then sublet the unit out at market rates yourself.

I don't know the same people that get mad at a corporation for allegedly "cheating the system" in some way don't find this sort of thing offensive, but weirdly they don't seem to at all.

> I know several people that do that: luck into a sweet rent control deal even though you were wealthy enough to afford market rates anyway, never, ever give up the lease even after you've essentially moved away anyway and then sublet the unit out at market rates yourself.

If this is in San Francisco, report them to the landlord or the city so they can be evicted. Tenants who abuse the system worsen the housing market for everyone.

Nice negligible anecdote

Your comments in this thread have been breaking the site guidelines. Can you please not do that? It poisons this place and weakens your arguments.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> She would sublet the place for a year or two and then come back.

That's generally illegal, unless the subtenant is paying no more than the tenant is in rent. Every tenant who does this in San Francisco can be, and ought to be, immediately evicted. There is zero economic/social justification for abuse of rent control.

It’s illegal, period. The unit has to be the tenant’s primary residence. Obviously the litigation to prove this in an anti-landlord town like SF is messy and often not worthwhile.

If you report the sublet, that tenant is likely getting kicked out. So now someone has to find a new place to live.

Yes, subletting for more than main tenants rent is illegal, but considering how hard it is to find apartments, most subletters just let it be.

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