
“Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900” - aestetix
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153190864139878
======
jackowayed
If you read the caption, the real issue here is a horrible abuse of the rent
control law. When the renter signed their lease, the unit was covered by rent
control, putting very tight restrictions on rent increases and evictions.
However, the landlord then essentially destroyed the other unit in the
building so that they could reclassify the building as a single-family home
instead of a multi-unit building. Single-family homes are not covered by the
rent control law.

This should obviously not be legal; if you're going to have a rent control,
you can't let landlords take a unit that should have rent control and make it
not rent controlled. At the very least, these kinds of changes shouldn't allow
the landlord to escape an active rent control obligation to a current tenant.

~~~
IgorPartola
OTOH, how much can you restrict the property owner? What if the other unit
needed to be knocked down for a reason other than to get rid of rent control?
Would it be OK for the law to tell the owner to fix it some other way? What if
both units were destroyed in a natural disaster and a new structure had to be
built from nothing? Is that still rent-controlled?

Also, is rent control even a good idea? In the short term, it obviously
protects a renter from the market running away from them. In the long term it
seems to create artificial conditions which eventually blow up in everyone's
face. Imagine a plan where the current renters had a viable alternative. Now
drop all rent control laws and let the market correct itself. Lower income
renters move out, higher income families move in. Rent goes up higher. Newly
moved in renters realize that they are paying 10x as much as the rest of the
country, leave. Rent goes down. The market has corrected itself and all is
well. What am I missing?

~~~
wpietri
What you're missing is that housing is not a normal good.

Sure, there is a housing marketplace, which can provide some correction. But
houses are also homes. People are born in them. People die in them. They love
them, they cherish them, they fight for them. There's a lot of truth in the
saying, "Home is where the heart is."

What you're missing in that scenario is the large number of people who are
displaced not just from their fungible, replaceable housing unit, but their
home, their neighborhood, their family, and perhaps their city and their job.

Note also there are substantial class issues in the sentence, "Lower income
renters move out, higher income families move in." The notion that poor people
should take it on the chin because rich people covet their homes is not
politically neutral. One could just as well say that it's the rich people,
more able to cope, that should bear the burden of market fluctuations.

So I don't think, "is rent control even a good idea" is the right question.
It's more like, "Are there more effective ways than rent control to reduce the
harm?"

~~~
maratd
You can use the same argument for any good or service. Tear something away
from a person and you can absolutely traumatize them. It can be a teddy bear
for a little kid, a car for an adolescent, your laptop, you get the idea.

You can't legislate life into some gentle state. It is what it is. You can,
however, smooth out the bumps.

Unfortunately, rent control does the exact opposite. It creates stupidity like
this. Where a landlord has to use a lawyer to increase the rent 4X, which is
insane on a number of levels. That is one hell of a bump in the road.

Get rid of rent control and prices will be stable. Yes, they will be higher
for some, lower for others, but they'll be stable.

~~~
vacri
_You can 't legislate life into some gentle state._

So you don't believe laws against crime?

 _You can use the same argument for any good or service._

None of the things you mentioned have the universality of a home, which
strikes almost everyone, regardless of demographic. Those who aren't adversely
affected by not having a home are notable for being extreme outliers. As
wpietri said, housing is not a normal good.

~~~
tptacek
A better way for him to have put it would have been: "Just like the Indiana
state legislature can't by statute declare pi to be 3.14, San Francisco cannot
repeal the law of supply and demand".

Rent control or not, the law of supply and demand still applies; it just
expresses itself in more dysfunctional and unproductive ways.

 _That 's_ the problem with rent control. Reasonable people can disagree about
whether the public policy goal of getting people affordable housing trumps the
rights of property owners. But they can't disagree about how many digits are
in pi, or about whether rent control works. It doesn't work. It harms everyone
in the market except for a lucky subset of tenants.

~~~
aceperry
"Rent control or not, the law of supply and demand still applies... or about
whether rent control works. It doesn't work."

Without rent control, I'm pretty sure that a LOT more people would be pushed
out of San Francisco. It seems to me that places like San Francisco, New York,
and a few other places are not typical of what other areas experience. I know
it's fashionable amongst the libertarian set to blame problems on regulation,
but there is much more going on here than simple rent control.

~~~
Kalium
The general response from economists seems to be that rent control suppresses
growth in the supply of housing that could otherwise address the cost of
housing.

~~~
lukeschlather
Zoning suppresses growth in the supply of housing. Of course, that doesn't
mean that zoning is bad by definition. Instead of artificially keeping
building height low, you could mandate new buildings have at least so many
stories.

San Francisco's problem seems to be that they can't possibly build enough
housing to meet market demands without revising zoning restrictions in ways
that would make current home owners angry.

~~~
tptacek
Zoning _also_ suppresses growth in the supply of housing, but so does rent
control. People don't build apartment buildings out of altruism.

------
s0uthPaw88
This is a perfect example of why rent control is a terrible system that leads
to market inefficiencies and worse outcomes for a community. The law has made
it more profitable for this landlord to remove housing stock and charge market
rate for the remaining unit than to rent out both units in the building under
rent control laws. Cities with low vacancy rates like SF need to rethink their
approach to housing if they want to remain attractive places to live.

~~~
nodesocket
If not for rent control, my studio apartment would be over $3,000 a month.
Everyday I thank rent control.

~~~
meddlepal
So what? Why do you think you should get to live somewhere highly desireable
at a below market rate?

~~~
phil248
Many people think they should be able to live in a place they can afford with
the reasonable expectation that it will be their home for the foreseeable
future. Many benefits, to both the economy and society at large, come from
ensuring the populace in general is able to find stable housing. While San
Francisco's rent control may be too stringent for its own good, there are many
reasons to support a more reasonable rent stabilization policy in a
jurisdiction with unstable rental prices.

~~~
nedwin
Rent control increases the pressure on the housing market by increasing the
price of rent for non-rent controlled properties and reducing incentives to
create more supply.

Brief overview from Krugman from 2000 but plenty more research out there on
the topic. [http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-
rent-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-rent-
affair.html)

------
therealwill
Here is the home:
[http://www.trulia.com/homes/California/San_Francisco/sold/71...](http://www.trulia.com/homes/California/San_Francisco/sold/7118191-355-Bocana-
St-San-Francisco-CA-94110)

Taxes are 11,043 with a value of 904,085. $2145 looks like an EXTREMELY low
rent for a house of this size in San Francisco. (half of the rent is just
property taxes.) The landlord was likely losing money keeping it rented at
$2145 even if he owned it free and clear.

~~~
thearn4
> 1 full bath, 1,900 sqft Single-Family Home

> a value of $904,085

I understand the nature of supply and demand and the appeal of living in an
area full of like minded people, but as someone in a flyover state, this
absolutely blows my mind.

~~~
freehunter
Shoot, in the Midwest I have an apartment with about that much square footage,
two full baths, and I think I'm getting ripped off at $1400/mo. Did I mention
I moved in less than a year ago, and was the first resident in the building,
so it's brand new?

I understand San Francisco is the home of technology, but get your stuff
sorted out, seriously. Is it worth being in a city that absolutely hates you?
A city that would do anything to make your lives miserable? I wonder what
would happen if Apple and Google packed up and moved to, I dunno, Milwaukee?

~~~
knorby
I lived in Chicago before moving to SF a few years ago, and I can't imagine
ever going back. There is an argument about jobs, people, and companies that's
complex, but people pay so much for so little space because it really is that
valuable. The weather is near perfect year round, the food/beer/wine is
astounding, the landscape is glorious, and so on. Midwest winters,
particularly as climate change is making them worse, would be enough to keep
me here, but my quality of life has gone up in about every other way possible.

People pay the premium because it really is that good. If a big tech company
decided to move to Milwaukee, every other tech company would just soak up all
the people lost.

~~~
freehunter
Is the weather, food/beer/wine, and landscape really that much better than
Santa Cruz? Is it that much better than Raleigh? Or Austin? Or any other city
that isn't San Francisco?

Besides the benefits you might get from SF, let's be realistic: the city
doesn't want you. It doesn't want any of you. The only benefit you're getting
is the people who moved there just like you, and the city doesn't want them,
either. If they wanted you, they would let you build houses, or let you run
buses without getting rocks thrown at you. They would welcome you and do what
it takes to make your stay pleasant.

I don't live in SF, but I frequent HN so I hear all the stories. If half of
what I hear here is true, you're a bunch of people living in a city where you
have massively overstayed your welcome. And it seems like no one has realized
it yet.

Please, tell me I'm wrong. Take a look at your rent, at your city policies,
your Senator, and at the people around you (not the tech workers, but the
other residents of SF), take a look at them and tell me I'm wrong. I don't
want to be right, but that's the only impression I can get from stories like
this.

~~~
olegious
I think the people "that don't want you" are a small, although vocal, minority
of San Francisco. Most San Franciscans prefer gentrification and tech workers
to slums and everything that entails. The silent majority, is just that-
silent. There is construction happening all over the city now, I think people
are starting to "get it"\- if you want lower rents, you have to build more
hosing.

I've been in SF since I was 9 years old, so feel that I can comment as a near
native.

~~~
freehunter
What about the recent story here where the Mountain View politicians were
saying they wouldn't build houses for Google employees because they didn't
want Google employees voting in their city? And Dianne Feinstein is still your
senator...

------
WalterSear
I just don't see the news here.

It's totally legal, and done all the time: it's why people lease houses rather
than go month to month.

It's not a reflection of the market in SF. This happens everywhere a landlord
who isn't getting on with their month-to-month tenants and want them out, for
whatever reason. It happened to me in 2005. It's not a necessarily a
reflection of anything outside of the personal situation of the poster, and
their relationship with their landlord.

If this had happened anywhere but SF, there wouldn't be the flurry of
hysterical outrage that's exploding on Twitter and Facebook: there would be
crickets.

~~~
maxerickson
They converted the other unit in the building to storage (after hassling that
tenant out).

I don't think it's anything like 'isn't getting on', the landlord wants to
convert the building to some other use and simply doesn't care about the
tenants, which isn't the same as finding them disagreeable or whatever (one
imagines they might want to do something like sell it as a private home).

~~~
cma
You really think they will keep it as storage? Once the remaining tenant is
out they will renovate everything and rent both units again.

~~~
eyeareque
I feel for the renter, but shouldn't the landlord be able to do whatever they
want with their property?

Rent is going way up because there aren't enough homes in sf for the amount of
people who want to live there. The city is to blame for this problem. Why is
sf such a flat city? There should be a lot more tall condo buildings but as
I've read it seems the city blocks any structure over 4 stories.

Raising rent will cause lots of low income people in sf to have to move.
That's not a good thing--but what is the answer here? How do other large
cities deal with this problem?

~~~
darkstar999
> shouldn't the landlord be able to do whatever they want with their property?

Not under current SF rent control laws. The issue here is how the landlord is
skirting around the law by making space unusable.

~~~
eyeareque
It is the law, but to utilize their property how they see fit they have to use
a loop hole.

The city is basically making land owners give section 8 rent welfare to
tenants, in a bid to keep the city affordable to long time residents during a
housing shortage. You'd hope that the city would open up building more high
rise housing (high end) to open up more space for the lower end of the
community.

------
whiteboarder
Build more houses. None of this shit would happen if SF would just build more
houses.

~~~
Russell91
Ironically, rent control is exactly why there is so little housing available
in SF. Iirc, only 30% of the voting population owns property. So how is it
that the rest of us (70%) don't vote to build more? Well, because 3/4 renters
are under rent control, and essentially don't care. So only 70%/4 < 30% of
people are motivated to push the market towards more housing. The rest profit
handsomely from increased home prices due to high demand. This is the real
tragedy of rent control in San Francisco IMO.

Edit: source: [http://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-San-Francisco-
apartm...](http://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-San-Francisco-apartments-
are-under-rent-control)

~~~
patrickaljord
Funny thing is that rent control is one of these issues that is non
controversial among economists, from the most Keynesians to the most
libertarians, they all agree that it's a bad idea. In fact, socialist
economist from Sweden Assar Lindbeck said: “In many cases rent control appears
to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except
for bombing.”.

Rent control is usually pushed by ruthless politicians to buy votes and end up
being catastrophic for the cities victim of such policies.

~~~
ageek123
Yep, even Paul Krugman thinks rent control is a bad idea:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-
rent-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-rent-
affair.html)

------
cletus
Landlord finds loophole to end rent control on a unit. Shocker.

To those who say it's unfair to the landlord to force rent control on them I
say two things:

1\. Yes it is. There are cases when legally allowed rents are below the taxes
the landlord needs to pay. If the government really thinks affordable housing
is a public good, let the government build or buy apartment buildings and
offer it rather than having forced income distribution essentially; and

2\. To the landlords: it's not so funny when the shoe's on the other foot is
it? I'm talking of course about Prop 13. This allows long term owners to pay
basically nothing in property taxes with those taxes only resetting when the
property is sold.

So the state of California screwed up in creating rent control and Prop 13.
Great. Repeal them both.

The problem with massive rent control is it creates a dysfunctional market and
a huge disincentive to rent out or build new housing supply [1].

New York City ended issuing new rent control leases in 1973. There are very
few left. NYC has a functional housing market (in comparison). There are
affordable places to live 30 minutes from Manhattan thanks to pretty good
infrastructure.

SF specifically and South Bay in general are basically an object lesson in
NIMBYism gone insane.

Honestly, the sooner the startup figures out that the only thing the Valley
has got going for it is the weather because everything else sucks, the better.

[1]: [http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/San-
Francisc...](http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/San-Francisco-
rent-control-contributes-to-housing-6010287.php)

~~~
simoncion
> There are cases when legally allowed rents are below the taxes the landlord
> needs to pay.

This does not happen in California. Prop 13 ensures it. Property taxes pretty
much never increase. One of the ways that they do is when a property changes
hands.

Either this landlord purchased the property with the intent of kicking out the
tenants whose rent he _knew_ would be less than the re-assessed property tax,
or he's being a dickbag and is throwing out a tenant because he feels that he
deserves more money from his long-term investment.

------
jlebar
> The few of us who still remain in San Francisco have no choice but to live
> in sub-par conditions like mold, windows that don't shut, rodents and
> countless other issues because there is no other choice, because the rents
> are so high you can't move so you don't.

Yes. But the solution isn't more rent controls. That just increases the gap in
price between market-rate apartments and rent-controlled apartments. This
makes it even harder to move, and it further increases the incentives for
landlords not to maintain their rent-controlled apartments or pull stunts like
this.

The solution is to add supply to meet demand. We should be furious at the
forces that have kept supply in SF so absurdly low.

~~~
brc
The rent control creates the mold and stuck windows. That's the point.

Supply is the answer. You cannot increase the number of people living in a
city without increasing housing stock.

Build, build, build. It is the only answer.

~~~
simoncion
I totally agree that SF needs to build like crazy. Every new residential
construction that goes up fills me with a little joy. :)

> The rent control creates the mold and stuck windows. That's the point.

Bullshit.

1) Friends down the block from me live in a tall "market rate" tower that is
in substantially poorer condition than the rent-controlled building that I
call home.

2) In SF, stuck windows and mold are must-repair items for landlords,
regardless of rent control status. If you as a tenant can't get satisfaction
from your landlord, do the repair yourself and present him with a bill. The
law guarantees that you'll be reimbursed in circumstances like these.

------
Sir_Cmpwn
YC sings the praises of San Fransisco, and they're right about the culture and
the startup scene there. But things like this, and the cost of living overall,
make me hesitate to start something out there.

~~~
r0naa
Me too, I have yet to graduate from college but things like that make me feel
that I should stay in Waterloo (Canada).

~~~
mud_dauber
<waves from Austin>

~~~
balls187
</waves from Austin>

<thumbsup city="Austin"/>

<thumbsup city="Seattle"/>

~~~
jeff_marshall
portland is also quite nice....

~~~
jes5199
shhhh! It's a secret

------
kartikkumar
So, there's no mention of the tenant's salary in this story. Does rent control
in SF or the US in general not stipulate that rent control is also a function
of the tenant's ability to pay? Here, in The Netherlands, this is an important
criterion in determining what the maximum increase is in rent for a given
property [1].

My general understanding of the law in The Netherlands based on having rented
once during university is that it heavily favours tenants. The bottomline is
that no one is allowed to end up on the street, with the main exception being
if the landlord is in dire financial straits. Apart from that, the law sides
with the tenant. This even goes to the extent that fixed-term contracts are
more or less useless, because if a tenant doesn't want to leave, they don't
have to.

Is it considered reasonable in SF that the tenant will be able to find
alternative accommodation within 60 days?

[1]
[http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/huurwoning/huurverho...](http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/huurwoning/huurverhoging)
(Laws on rental increase in The Netherlands in Dutch)

[2] [https://www.jurofoon.nl/huren/huurovereenkomst-voor-
bepaalde...](https://www.jurofoon.nl/huren/huurovereenkomst-voor-bepaalde-
tijd.asp) (Fixed-term contract rules for housing in Dutch)

~~~
nedwin
if only SF rent control was linked to the income of the renter! Plenty of well
paid engineers and execs living in significantly below market apartments when
they could easily afford market-priced housing.

If the aim is to create affordable housing for low income earners, rent
control is not the solution.

~~~
simoncion
Most new places (and some old places in desirable areas) in SF are going for
~$3000->$4000/month.

In order to cover $3000/month rent, average power, internet access, and
$400/week spending cash, you need to gross _$100k /year_.

If you pull in less than that, then you run out of money and get evicted.
Notice that no provision has been made for savings.

I know of a great many programmers working for successful Bay Area companies
who would just _barely_ have enough money to pay market rents on their
apartment.

~~~
nedwin
Here's the thing - imagine what it's like if you're making median income in
the city of $75k. Or if you're one of the thousands of service workers who are
earning sub-$50k yet people on $100k+ also get access to $1000pm apartments.

Doesn't make sense if we're trying to achieve equality (I still don't know
what it's really trying to achieve - some kind of nativism)

There is an argument that removing rent control would actually reduce the
price of rent through San Francisco but it would take a few years to
stabilize.

------
gfodor
This person should be grateful they were able to live in a place in such high
demand so cheaply due to unfair rent control laws. If a 4x increase in rent is
bearable by the market then it's not a sign of landlord greed, it's a sign of
a broken system. I'm sure if this person was offered the opportunity to make
an extra 5k a month with little to no change in effort on their part they
would do so and be offended if people labelled them as "greedy." I support
some form of rent control but if you are in a situation where there is that
large of a gap between market rates and tenant rent then things are fucked --
you are basically creating a privileged class: those who managed to lock up
rent controlled space as tenants.

~~~
pimlottc
> If a 4x increase in rent is bearable by the market then it's not a sign of
> landlord greed, it's a sign of a broken system.

It's not bearable by the market. $2145 is low but market rate is nowhere near
$8900 for a place like this; not even half that. This is clearly an attempt to
force the tenant out with an inflated rate.

I'm not going to comment on either sides rights here but this rate is not
simply "what the market will bear".

~~~
remarkEon
Can we really even say what "market rate" is anymore?

~~~
pimlottc
Good question, but the maps and figures released by the rental companies
usually put it in the $3000-some range, plus or minus depending on area.

------
bbarn
The reason this article is trending at the top of HN is the reason this person
is going through this. The idea that great start-ups must exist on an 47 sq
mile piece of land with utterly mediocre weather (the literal definition of
mediocre, that is - one many of us love, myself included) in perfect
coexistence with a quaint aging population below the poverty line, drug
addicts, and the last generation that sought to live there in the last boom is
patently absurd.

Why so many globally reaching, internet based, in every home in the world
companies think that they absolutely must be positioned in the mecca of
startupdom is why I just can't take my own career seriously for too long.
There's no reason we all need to be on that tiny peninsula! If you need to be
there for "reach to investors", "proximity to the startup culture", guess
what, your product probably sucks. If it were any good, you could do it from
anywhere, without having to sit on the great lords of tech investment's front
door begging every day.

You want to disrupt something? Why not start with disrupting the idea that
being part of "start-up culture" is required to be successful.

~~~
swatow
I think people go to San Francisco for the 20-30 year old girls, not the aging
population or drug addicts.

~~~
conanbatt
Nobody moves to San Francisco looking for girls.

------
clarky07
Contrary to popular belief, there are other places to live than San Francisco.
Almost all of them are more affordable. If you don't want to pay absurd cost
of living, move. There are in fact jobs in other parts of the world.

------
dools
Rent control seems monumentally stupid.

In Australia, the government owns houses and rents them out to people cheaply.
The owners of the house are compensated when the house is bought.

It seems insane that owners of a property should be expected to keep rent
artificially low to help poor people.

This is the government's job.

But then, in America, you guys don't trust the government to do anything like
house, educate and heal people.

Go figure.

~~~
icelancer
> But then, in America, you guys don't trust the government to do anything
> like house, educate and heal people.

Or fight wars or manage finances. Because there is strong precedence that the
government is pretty bad at these things.

------
dbloom
This was almost certainly illegal.

Removing dwelling units in SF (as they did to the downstairs neighbor's flat)
almost always requires a public hearing. See [http://www.sf-
planning.org/index.aspx?page=2816](http://www.sf-
planning.org/index.aspx?page=2816)

(via
[https://twitter.com/markasaurus/status/577252542419062784](https://twitter.com/markasaurus/status/577252542419062784)
)

------
pdq
"(2) Effective May 5, 2015, the security deposit amount required shall
increase to $12,500 per month."

Is this a typo? I have never heard of a monthly security deposit.

~~~
jsprogrammer
I think it is just a scary way of stating that you must have $12,500 deposited
with the owner for the entire month you are leasing. It just rolls over each
month.

------
azinman2
They want to sell the house. This is their way of kicking people out without
explicitly doing so.

------
grandalf
While this is inconvenient for the tenant, it's not unfair. Rent control is
unfair. Now, with the proceeds, the landlord might invest in new flats which
will mean more housing for everyone.

------
colanderman
"the security deposit [...] shall increase to $12,500 per month"

Can someone explain what this means? I've never had to pay a security deposit
_per month_. That must be a copy + paste error?

~~~
tylermac1
The numbers are just there to make it impossible to pay. They want the tenant
out so they can sell the house.

~~~
colanderman
I get that. But the concept of a security _deposit_ is that you get it back
when you leave, so long as you haven't damaged the place. Having to pay an
additional security deposit each month doesn't make logistical or logical
sense. Do they hand you a check for $1M when you leave after ten years? Does
the number of damageable surfaces in the apartment increase each month?

~~~
tylermac1
Not necessarily. I've had security deposits where only a certain percentage is
refunded after any necessary deductions. Depends on what they signed in the
lease. But still, it was never designed to actually be collected, just a
number to scare someone away. Not much more to look into it.

------
JDiculous
Is that legal? In NYC, there are laws in place to limit the amount a landlord
can raise rent.

~~~
x0x0
Yes, it is almost certainly legal.

The other option landlords always have is to withdraw the unit from the
market. You can Ellis Act anyone you want; the price you pay is $18k per
person or so plus waiting 366 days, and a stained title. You can still
renovate then TIC the building though, and you'll find plenty of takers.

ps -- having been in a legal fight with an sf landlord, the fact of the matter
is despite all the pretty bullshit sf claims, there are vanishingly few actual
tenant protections that work against a malicious landlord. At best, you can
leave and sue after the fact, but be prepared to spend years on a fight.

@harry: an ellis act eviction, or other no-fault evictions, permanently
prevents the building from utilizing the 2-unit lottery bypass to condo the
building, so it will have to remain a TIC. TICs have a variety of negative
implications, including complicating mortgages. The lottery, which is still
necessary for larger units, is suspended until 2024.

see eg
[http://www.andysirkin.com/HTMLArticle.cfm?Article=158](http://www.andysirkin.com/HTMLArticle.cfm?Article=158)

and

[http://www.andysirkin.com/HTMLArticle.cfm?Article=219](http://www.andysirkin.com/HTMLArticle.cfm?Article=219)

~~~
harryh
What do you mean by "stained title"?

------
geebee
I'm coming very late to this (540 comments and counting), but I do want to
make one point about the term "NIMBY". While it's a reasonable observation
about housing politics, it does invite potentially false equivalence. A kind
of equivalence is built into the term itself - "not in my backyard" means
everyone recognizes something is needed, but nobody wants it near them. In
this case, everyone wants to live in the low density section of a high density
area.

Still, this term encompasses everyone from bernal heights hippies who want to
keep density at 18,311/sq mi to atherton billionaires who want to keep it at
1,400. It includes noe valley "activists" who don't want to tear down 100 year
old houses and mountain view city council members who voted to allow massive
new corporate construction bringing tens (hundreds?) of thousands of new
workers to their region but specifically banned new residential construction
near those places of business.

All in all, yeah, I hear you on the noe/bernal/mission activists. They are a
bit nimbytastic, no doubt. But to me, the actions of the anti-housing forces
in some peninsula towns are such an order of magnitude worse (and are causing
many of the problems you see in SF) that simply applying the NIMBY label to
both without further analysis is an exercise in false equivalence.

------
bhuga
It's an incredible statement on the depth of the bay area talent pool and VC
money network that so much tech concentrates in such a tiny place (and thus
drives up the rent, as in the article). Nowhere else in the world can compete.

It's not for lack of trying. Louisiana, for example, will pay 35% of a
programmers salary indefinitely[1]; other states and cities have similar
programs. That's serious competition. But the talent/money vortex of the bay
area is not just winning, it's actually _getting stronger_.

The other areas with real companies, like Austin, Seattle, and New York, still
feel like also-rans compared to SF and the valley. If you want to raise money,
it's still the place to go.

It's just incredible to think about. Is there any other field where there's
just one geographical place that's just so far ahead of anywhere else?
Especially fields like biotech, where geography isn't directly related to the
business?

[1]: [http://gnoinc.org/about/digital-media-
incentive/](http://gnoinc.org/about/digital-media-incentive/)

------
dredmorbius
This would be an excellent time to:

1\. Contact a tenants-rights attorney.

2\. Familiarize yourself with housing law and mediation.

In San Francisco, the latter is covered under the San Francisco Rent board:
[http://sfrb.org/](http://sfrb.org/)

The former can be located via the San Francisco Tenants' Union:
[http://www.sftu.org/](http://www.sftu.org/)

------
ghshephard
I find it interesting that we can, with almost 95%+ success, determine who on
these threads owns Real Estate in San Francisco, versus those who don't.

There are admittedly some comments that are in the margins, but the number of
false positives/negatives is probably pretty close to zero.

In particular, those who rant about the evils of uncontrolled rental markets
are 99% likely to not own real estate in San Francisco.

Therefore, those commentors aren't commenting on the objective good or bad of
such issues, so much as they are just explaining what their personal situation
is. As soon as those people who cried the evils of uncontrolled rental markets
came into possession of San Francisco property, they would immediately change
their tune.

Should we place any value in ethical principles which are so immediately seen
to be self-serving?

~~~
pingswept
How can you verify your assumptions about whether or not a commenter owns real
estate?

For example, do I own real estate in San Francisco? I think your chances of
getting that right are pretty close to 50%.

~~~
ghshephard
You haven't made any comments about Real Estate ownership, so I can't make any
guesses.

I really like Warren Buffet's perspective, the rules one believes are right,
should be created _without you knowing what your circumstance will be_. That
is, if you are trying to determine what is right, or not, about rent controls,
you should create without knowing whether you will be renter, or an owner.

I've never met a real estate owner in San Francisco who was rabidly opposed to
uncontrolled rent markets - so, with 99% certainly (I'm sure there are some
edge cases), anybody who is highly opposed to uncontrolled rent markets is,
with a high level of certainty, not a real estate owner in San Francisco.

~~~
pingswept
I agree with you that we should agree to a set of rules without knowing our
circumstances.

But the rest of your argument doesn't make sense. You've never met an SF real
estate owner with a certain opinion, so you know something about most of them?
There are at least 10,000 SF real estate owners. Have you talked to more than
0.1% of them? And even if you had, how would that help with your original
claim that you can identify whether commenters in this thread were SF real
estate owners or not?

~~~
ghshephard
The meta point that I was trying to make, and I think is really important, not
only in this context, but in a vast number of contentious threads, in HN and
other arenas, is so often when we are voicing what we propose is a moral, or
ethical position, is no more than a declaration of what our particular
situation happens to be at that time.

Someone living in a rent-controlled apartment will be a strong believer in
rent control. Someone owning real estate will be opposed to rent control. What
I find fascinating is that the _same person_ with the same knowledge,
background, and education might hold two diametrically opposite positions.

~~~
pingswept
Mostly agreed about your meta point. I think you're omitting the possibility
that someone might be opposed to something that benefits them.

But in the non-meta discussion, all I'm saying is that you don't know which
commenters are in which situation, and especially not with 95% certainty, like
you claimed. Some of the commenters might oppose rent control, even though
they benefit from it. Other commenters might strongly support rent control in
San Francisco, even though they live in Wyoming. We just don't know.

~~~
ghshephard
So - I grant you that I don't have epistemological knowledge of these
commentors positions. And yes, you're right, for people that don't have any
skin in the game (people outside the bay area) - it's much more difficult to
understand what their position is.

I guess my only hope is that when people voice a very strong opinion on this
topic (or, for that matter, any topic) - that they might consider whether they
are holding that position with a "veil of ignorance", or whether they are just
projecting from their own situation.

~~~
pingswept
Agreed, good sir or madam!

------
issa
Look at this from another perspective. Being a landlord is great. You sign a
piece of paper making you the owner of a property. Then other people do actual
work and pay you just for having your name on that piece of paper.

If we lived in a perfect (or even just a "better") society, this would be
fine. But the problem is that we live in a society with different classes. If
your parents owned a home or two, you probably will as well. If your parents
didn't, you probably won't either.

In reality, "rent" is just another way to keep the rich rich and the poor
poor. Rent Control is an attempt to mitigate the damage. Personally, I think
it's a terrible band-aid that exists because we aren't willing to face the
real issues at hand.

------
donnfelker
... and another reason to hire remote. Helps reduce this kind of nonsense from
happening.

------
fhf
There seems to be a lot of discussion in this topic around the idea that "IF
San Francisco did away with rent control, THEN the market would correct the
problem."

Given that SF hasn't had rent control since 1980 (it only applies to buildings
constructed before that), and the market has thus had 25 years to correct,
which of the following is true:

1\. There is no housing problem 2\. Removing rent control didn't make a
difference.

I'm actually curious to know the opinion of people blaming rent control...

(edit: typo)

------
pascal1us
This sort of thing has been building up for a long time. This is mainly due to
the Greed of the SF tenants to who prevent developers from building more units
with local politics NIMBY. By constricting the supply artificially it prevents
new buildings from going up. Also, the mayor is to blame as well, for
incentivizing more companies to come to SF making the situation even worse.

------
abalone
The typical false-wise answer to the housing crisis is something like "build
more housing, supply & demand, read an Econ 101 textbook, DUH."

The reality is more complex.

The _real_ Economics 101 answer is: You can't know the effect of more supply
on prices without knowing the _demand curve_. No one truly knows that, but
consider this. The current market price is basically what a startup employee
can support on their salary without kids, much savings, etc. If there's a
large supply of people willing to move into SF for jobs like this and pay that
price, but unable to pay more, then _that whole worldwide supply needs to be
exhausted before the market price comes down._ That could take years or even
decades depending on how the startup boom goes.

In the meantime, the macroeconomic effects of widespread losses in housing for
blue collar, service industry workers, the middle class, artists, etc. can
have very undesirable long term effects on a city. There is good reason for
city governments to consider managing this growth.

------
omarforgotpwd
Hopefully the rising prices will encourage investment and lead to a greater
supply of housing options in the future. The fact that this kind of thing is
happening probably means the rent control laws have been too strict in the
past.

------
lucaspiller
[Meta] Why has this dropped off the first page? It currently #32 and has 443
points, 447 comments and was posted 4 hours ago - there aren't any other
stories more popular than this on the first page.

------
politician
Slightly OT: Does anyone know whether there is there a housing equivalent of
the Basic Income movement? Basic Shelter?

~~~
sampo
Affordable housing is something that would actually be solved by free markets.
It's the heavily regulated (almost socialistic) systems when building new
homes to new people in a growing city is not allowed (because the old
residents don't want their city to grow), so supply is now allowed to meet the
demand, when we have these problems.

~~~
shauncrampton
Everything could be solved by a perfect free marker where everyone had perfect
information, zero latency in decision making and where making a decision cost
nothing. Trouble is, IRL, none of those assumptions is even remotely true.
Just as the renter signs an agreement, so does the landlord; rent controls
skew the bargain but they do it for both parties. If the landloard didn't want
to have a rent-controlled tenant for 10 years, then they should have magically
known (using their perfect market information, duh!) that that tenant would be
there 10 years and rented to someone else who wouldn't.

~~~
sampo
A desirable city with very limited new construction will lead to increasing
prices. You can use rent control to give cheaper housing to a smallish number
of people, who kind of win in this lottery and get cheaper housing the others.
But there will be those others, lots of them, who were not among the "lottery
winners" and who will have to resort ti living with a much longer commute.

If demand is high, building new homes for people should be allowed.

------
presty
Hey everyone, time to retake San Jose.

------
JohnLen
Wonder how this rental mechanism works

------
john_butts
You nerds are sooooo fucked when the rubber meets the road.

------
michaelochurch
I can't take San Francisco seriously anymore.

If the VCs weren't there, it'd be a third-rate city, and much of what the VCs
are funding isn't even technology but the post-apocalyptic sort of "attempt to
engage in one of the short-term natural monopolies that technology sometimes
creates" gambits that bloom in the caldera of an imploded technology industry.
Yet it has become a more expensive place to live than New York, despite being
dysfunctional in every measure other than tech salaries.

I cannot see why California hasn't done something about Prop 13 NIMBYs. All
that those useless parasites do is block progress, drive up the rents by
preventing new housing from being built, and cause measles epidemics with
their anti-vax nonsense. It's really time to call in some Texans on that shit
and fix the NIMBY problem. If California can't do that, then how are we
supposed to take them seriously? If they can't get their heads out of the ass
of the past that the NIMBYs claim that they are preserving, how can we trust
them to build the future?

~~~
dlss
> how can we trust them to build the future?

Don't! Whatever the alternative was in your head when you wrote this sentence
-- do that! The world needs more future-builders :D

------
G650
messed up.

------
hindsightbias
I can't believe a single glibertarian hasn't quoted Krugman on rent control
yet.

------
hindsightbias
Well, like all good things, HN has passed Eternal September. Or more quaintly:

[http://imgur.com/L00Fn2t](http://imgur.com/L00Fn2t)

~~~
ageek123
Why, because you disagree with what some people are saying?

------
bovermyer
Regardless of legality, this is obviously wrong. The owner of the property
clearly has no understanding of reality; they're going to be financially
destroyed by this move, so no additional action necessary on that front. Glad
to see someone so evil fall on hard times; pity they won't suffer more.

As for the tenant(s); if you want to relocate, I'll put you up in Minneapolis
for free for a couple months if you want. No conditions, just let me know.

~~~
WalterSear
From the records on Zillow, assuming they owned the unit free and clear, the
landlord was likely losing money at the current rent: it's less than the
current taxes on the unit.

Should they have been forced to continue to rent the unit out at a loss?

~~~
cowsandmilk
Zillow has property taxes at $11,043/year

The tenant was paying $2,145/month = $25,470/year.

According to the letter, they forced out another tenant. IF that tenant was
paying a similar amount, the landlord was making >4x taxes in rent, not less
than the current taxes.

Also, the current owners bought the property on 12/30/2014\. Why should anyone
have sympathy for them having tenants? They knew they were buying a rent-
controlled building. They aren't some owners for the past 30 years being held
victim to tenants who won't move out.

~~~
cowsandmilk
correction to myself on "buying", it appears the previous owner was "SHUKRY &
VERA LAMA RVC LVG TR" and the new owner is "LAMA NADIA V", so it probably was
an inheritance, not a purchase.

~~~
cthalupa
If you read the facebook post, it claims they transferred the house from one
couple to a sibling as part of the process that allowed them to increase rent.

