
More evidence of rent declines in Portland - jseliger
http://cityobservatory.org/more-evidence-of-rent-declines-in-portland/
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deephoney
This is exactly what you would expect to see in a city where demand is largely
driven by people living and working in the area, but in some large
international cities (Vancouver, London I'm looking at you!)
Speculation/Investment from non-residents makes up a such a significant part
of demand and the highest margin part of that demand, that there is a risk of
new builds becoming "empty nest eggs". [1]

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-
non...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-non-
residents-statistics-canada-figures-1.4456657)

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gigatexal
It’s a shitty time to be a landlord though, one without deep pockets anyway: I
just have a home that I bought years ago that when I got married a year later
thought I’d supplement my new family’s income with some rent. Nothing major
since I have a mortgage and a high interest rate and all that. But it was
fine. I treated my tenants well, came rushing in to fix anything, didn’t
charge late fees, etc. then the Portland city council run by a woman who has
never owned a home passes an ordinance that makes it nigh to impossible to
raise rents (caps them at 10%) and even if someone is on a month to month
lease they get 90 days notice (totally cool with that) and a stipend to pay
for their next place between 1800 and almost 5 grand based on length of stay.
(Not cool!).

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TheAdamAndChe
10% annual rent increase is a lot, and is well above inflation for most areas.
Is the stipend only required if you kick them out? If that's the case, then it
makes sense IMO. Renters are people and need stable housing.

~~~
gigatexal
I never raised it like that. But adjusting short-term renters to market rents
is something tenants should understand as a possibility, this law effectively
puts a cap on things.

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newbear
Just spent a month looking for a studio or one bedroom below $1200. Plenty of
ok options and a couple better than ok. All apartments came with the threat of
a scary property management company. Finally we found an artsy owner with an
attic and After waiting two weeks for our background check to pass for a
studio we were approved but had already signed a lease for he attic. Pretty
stressful process. Mostly because the paranoia of dealing with shady property
managers. If I was a Stanford MBA I'd start a nation wide property management
firm that focus on ethics and does shit right. Housing fellow hard working
citezens should be an honor and done with good morals. And to think how much
harder it is for somebody just even a little bit worse off than me...

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telchar
Out of curiosity, what makes you call those property managers scary, vs others
you have encountered?

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newbear
I've only dealt with one in my life because I've mostly sublet. And they
screwed me. It could have been worse but I learned my lesson to not give them
any room for taking advantage of you. Take pictures, do a walk through etc.
Now I'll search for reviews of the company and mostly they are all terrible.
And then you see a little of it when you deal with the people through the
process. And start to imagine writing your own terrible review in the future
and just wish a good person would take you in and give you a safe place to
live.

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coolspot
I think controversy is not that building more has no effect on rent prices -
of course more supply drives prices down.

It is more about whether we want to live in over-populated ant-farms or want
to pay premium for less dense living.

~~~
jmknoll
"Over-populated ant farms" is a pretty strong phrase, and is usually more the
result of bad policy than density in and of itself. San Francisco has about
6000 people/square km, and feels crowded. Paris has about 20,000 people/square
km, and to me feels less crowded.

In Paris, they've taken the general development policy of building everything
up to 6-8 stories, with commercial on the ground floor and residential above.
Strikes me as a good way to pack in a lot of people without things feeling too
crowded.

~~~
SwellJoe
The US is, by and large, absolutely insane in how it plans cities. "Mixed use"
is a total novelty in most cities...only now being considered for a small
percentage of development. Most cities still have city plans and zoning that
enforce huge suburban neighborhoods with no commercial development within
them. It leads to disastrously bad neighborhoods with disastrously bad traffic
going into and out of the places where people are doing things like have jobs
or shop. Even hip/progressive cities are this way. It's really a big deal when
a development happens that steps out of it, and people in surrounding housing
usually raise holy hell to keep it from happening.

Americans are mostly goddamned idiots who hate nice things, is what I'm trying
to say. (And, have the nerve to complain about traffic in the same breath as
demanding nothing other than single-family homes be allowed within miles of
their single-family home.)

