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> You have the same attitude when prices go up?

No, but the people on the opposite side of the transaction (the landlords) for damn sure do. "Market price has gone up, what can you do" is something I've been told when trying to negotiate lease renewals, and I'm outside the Bay Area.

Landlords could, as a group, have pushed to help make pricing stable and make their investment a long-term, very secure asset. Instead, just like virtually every other part of this fire-encrusted economy, they grabbed for the short-term gains at the expense of plodding consistency. Landlord groups are pushing back on the idea that tenants should do anything except blithely pay whatever duly-increased price is passed onto us and we should thank them for the privilege besides.

My heart bleeds.




They could have pushed to stabilize the market?

The only reason it’s dropping is because of Covid. How could they have avoided a mass exodus due to a pandemic?


If the cost/benefit ratio was more in line with "reasonable living" versus "I'm putting up with this for three years to make bank and then getting the fuck out," that's one way.

Could landlords have completely forestalled people leaving? No. Could they, as a group, have done a lot more to actually agitate for--versus opposing--things like new housing to keep market prices stable (rather than a hockey stick) and worked with tenant groups to aim for a tenancy system that balances each group's needs more directly, rather than "rent consumes almost all available resources?" Yes.

Had landlords tried to work in concert with the people who provide the source of income for landlords, rather the opposing them at almost every turn, the "exodus" might be a rather expected "trickle."

They made their bed of housing scarcity in these possibly-former-hot markets...they can lie in it.




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