2) You've missed my point about moving costs. Even when the market favors renters, the lease renewal negotiation favors landlords. This is because moving costs time and money payable to third parties. As a result, the landlord can charge higher rents for renewals than they can for new leases.
The building I live in is also in the situation currently where a unit is being left vacant in anticipation of a condo conversion in a couple years.. San Francisco has a very complicated condo conversion law but part of it is that during conversion some existing tenants have to be offered lifetime leases which can never be increased. Leaving units vacant is a rational way of dealing with that.
Good for them. Better that they do this than take the rental income, and later whine about how terribly unfair renter protection laws are. :)
Based on my immensely scientific[0] survey of Internet Message Boards (and personal experience in the American Southeast), it seems that potential landlords sometimes forget that when they rent their property to others for use as the renters' home, the landlord loses almost all control over that property. This is right and just: everyone deserves a safe, secure, private place to live.
> Leaving units vacant is a rational way of dealing with SF's condo conversion laws.
Again, it's good for the landlords that they showed this much restraint.
The condo conversion laws prevent landlords from turning their apartment stock (that pays off smaller amounts over time) into condo stock (that pays off one large lump sum). These are sane and rational laws to have in cities that (for a variety of disgusting reasons) find themselves unable to create sufficient housing to meet demand.
[0] Ha!
2 - moving isn't "that" expensive. It's a pain in the ass, but you can do it in a weekend with a few hundred dollar moving truck. You might be able to raise rates a few percent, but you can't just move them significantly above market.
Let me guess: no kids, haven't lived in your place very long, don't know your neighbors, don't have family nearby, don't live in a city with substantial pressure on housing, and you make over the median income.
> You might be able to raise rates a few percent, but you can't just move them significantly above market.
That you can't imagine something doesn't always mean it's not possible. It can mean the world is more complex than you expect.
I'm glad that you have such an easy and comfortable life that moving is no big deal, but that's just not true for everyone on the planet.
If your landlord raises their rates to double the market value, move. If you don't, that just means you're doing it wrong.
Yes, sure, if the rent is doubled, one should probably move despite the hassle. But the point is that landlords can take advantage of the asymmetry in cost/difficulty of changing places to hike rents. Nobody would move because the landlord was charging them $1/yr above what they could pay elsewhere. Most would move if it were double. The landlord's advantage is somewhere in between.
Care to show me a single company that would allow me to rent a truck for a cross country move for less than four hundred dollars?
Go ahead. Take your time.
You've described the typical SF tech worker and decided that everyone is like that. Might want to broaden your horizons a bit.
Regardless, you don't get the security deposit back until a few weeks after you've moved out. Never seen a truck rental or moving company who is all like "sure, you can pay us in a month". A bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, there.