Didn't We The People Just Vote AGAINST Rent Control? (Sacramento: for sale, 2015)
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I’ve been raising rent in anticipation of rent control . But 7% is what I like to have, since I only raised 3%.
Yeah I was going to say, it's like they don't understand how a market works. I've rarely raised rent beyond 5% annually, and only in cases where the demand for the unit/home was so overwhelming (I'm talking triple digit applications).
But if government is going to set the ceiling, well 7% it is.
Never mind that whatever ceiling the government sets the market may not bear. Just go ahead and declare that you’ll now raise to the ceiling and the market will automatically honor your move ... riiiiight
In urban areas there isn't a lot of land to build on, and there is still an unmet demand for expensive housing, so if you are a builder - are you willing to build 100 low income apartments that rent for $1500 a month or would you prefer to build 50 luxury condos that rent for $4,000 a month? That problem exists even in areas with plenty of room to build on, I'm in Sacramento and you know what's being built here? $450,000 SFH's which represent a huge bargain to SF Bay area refugees, but that leaves the 'indigent population' who work at Amazon warehouse or at some lower paid State job with nowhere to live, what do you suggest, should we forbid the construction of more rabbit warren subdivisions until the demand for lower income apartments is met?
You're missing the point. Rent control is a huge disincentive to build at all even if developers could build.
The number values are not exactly the point. It's supply and demand. Not a lot of people are demanding to live in West Virginia right now, and since there is much supply prices are low. But if lots of people are demanding to live in San Francisco and there isn't enough supply to go around then prices will be high and go higher.
Think of it as a game of musical chairs. If there are 10 chairs and 11 players bidding on seats then prices will rise slightly. If there are 10 chairs and 17 players bidding on seats then prices will rise astronomically. If there are 10 chairs and only 9 players needing to bid on seats then sellers or landlords may provide incentive to get people to take what they're offering.
Of course the real solution, at least in areas where more supply is demanded, is to just add 7 chairs to this hypothetical game. In a free market those chairs would be developed pretty quickly, especially since the guy who makes chair #11 benefits more than the guy who makes chair #17 and brings it to market.
But if the government didn't mess around with wages, or indeed distort wages by giving some people welfare and not to others, then wages would naturally rise in high COL areas and fall in low COL areas. Labor will also migrate toward high paying areas where wages are rising and migrate away from low wage areas so that there will be a natural balancing act. The reason wages naturally rise in high COL areas is because employers will have to attract people there in the first place.
If tech workers are pricing out house cleaners and burger flippers (and there is nothing inherently wrong with that per se), then you will have to pay house cleaners and burger flippers a hefty premium in order to make commutes or to afford to live in town. Once again, there should be a natural balancing act, but you need a free market.
I'll also point out that ample welfare benefits keep wages low rather than the notion that low wages "force" people onto welfare as is commonly believed. If you're receiving government benefits your calculation for how much you need/want to earn is very different from someone who's not getting benefits. If people didn't get benefits they'd demand that employers pay more or they will take jobs elsewhere.
You're missing the point. Rent control is a huge disincentive to build at all even if developers could build.
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I think you must think I said something that I didn't, perhaps you should go back and read what I did say before you start lecturing me?
Quote:
I'm not even sure that rent control really does much to help people in the long run. My stepson lived in a rent control apartment in San Francisco for years. He only moved when he got married and had a kid, but for most of the time he lived there he was making enough money that he could have paid 3 times what he was paying for his rent controlled apartment.
What I do think needs to be stopped is doubling and tripling rent after a disaster strikes, like the ones in Santa Rosa and Paradise, that is as wrong as charging $10 for a bottle of water when it's the only option you have. If we have to resort to 'rent control' to stop that kind of nonsense, then so be it.
PS Builders build what will make them the most money, there isn't any rent control in Sacramento County but builders aren't building low or median rent apartments, they are building $450,000-$600,000 rabbit warren subdivision SFH's where you can smell your neighbors farts if you both make the mistake of opening your bathroom window at the same time.
PS Builders build what will make them the most money, there isn't any rent control in Sacramento County but builders aren't building low or median rent apartments, they are building $450,000-$600,000 rabbit warren subdivision SFH's where you can smell your neighbors farts if you both make the mistake of opening your bathroom window at the same time.
Well good for those builders. If people are choosing to live in Sacramento because they are unable to live in San Francisco then so be it. Now if people wanted to move to Oklahoma City they'd probably pay ¼ of the price that they're paying for the same stick-box in Commiefornia's capital.
I'm glad that those builders are building what they can and that they're making money. At the end of the day they're putting SUPPLY onto the market. If more supply keeps being added you'll see a balancing act where prices might actually come down a bit as long as demand remains level or should it ever go down.
And maybe that's the whole point. Since there isn't rent control and perhaps generally less regulation, fewer permits, fees, "studies", etc. then that's where builders are going to build at all if given the choice between two places where one has more barriers to building versus another area that places tremendous barriers upon getting anything accomplished.
rent control will be the disaster it's already been. My in-laws lived in a rent control shyte hole in west LA, and it hadn't been touched in years, many years. Rent control practically guarantees a trend towards slums. But go ahead, chump Californians, you just keep piling more poop on your plate. Newsom is just getting warmed up.
And maybe that's the whole point. Since there isn't rent control and perhaps generally less regulation, fewer permits, fees, "studies", etc. then that's where builders are going to build at all if given the choice between two places where one has more barriers to building versus another area that places tremendous barriers upon getting anything accomplished.
That is just silly, property built after 1995 in California is exempt from rent control so that has nothing to do with a builder deciding what/where to build.
Sacramento and most of the Central Valley has a whole lot of flat vacant land, San Francisco has almost no space to build except up and residents don't want daylight completely blocked by 1,000 foot buildings. There is so much pent up demand for housing in San Francisco that you could build thousands or million dollar condos and people would still buy them, I have no idea what it would take to meet all of the demand and see people start to refuse to pay the asking price but I don't think we will see that happen in the next decade.
But it's not about fees or permits or 'barriers to building'. The most expensive housing that will sell in a given area is what will be built, a builder would be nuts to do anything other than that. Let's try to avoid being silly and not try to turn this into some kind of conspiracy or political discussion because it's not any of that.
PS Housing in Oklahoma is 1/4 the price of California housing because no one is willing to pay more than that to live there.
If I read the article right from the Sacramento Bee after Googling this, my understanding is that the section of the bill regarding a landlord not being able to kick a tenant out except "for cause" - was removed.
So, if that's right, then all a landlord has to do to raise the rent more than 7% every year, is simply to never renew a lease. All they would have to do is give 30 days notice before the end of a 12-month lease that they aren't going to renew the lease. Or, just do month-to-month leases and just be sure to kick the tenants out before a year has gone by, if not sooner.
So, this would mean zero stability for the tenants, making the whole thing a really sad joke.
If I read the article right from the Sacramento Bee after Googling this, my understanding is that the section of the bill regarding a landlord not being able to kick a tenant out except "for cause" - was removed.
So, if that's right, then all a landlord has to do to raise the rent more than 7% every year, is simply to never renew a lease. All they would have to do is give 30 days notice before the end of a 12-month lease that they aren't going to renew the lease. Or, just do month-to-month leases and just be sure to kick the tenants out before a year has gone by, if not sooner.
So, this would mean zero stability for the tenants, making the whole thing a really sad joke.
The bill prohibits terminating a tenancy to avoid the law. The eviction bill failed and can't be heard again until next year. Here is the bill as passed by the assembly, it now has to go to the Senate:
Developers can certainly build where I live (Sacramento) but they sure as heck aren't building anything that is affordable for most hourly workers. As long as there is an unmet demand for expensive housing, that is what builders will construct, they aren't charities, they won't build cheap apartments when they can build expensive ones - why would they? It certainly doesn't look like the City or the County are being 'stingy' with building permits, there are at least 185 new home communities in the County. The problem is the lack of affordable rentals, and there is no incentive for a builder to construct them when they can make more building SFH's or expensive apartments or condos. https://www.newhomesource.com/commun...caAmXqEALw_wcB
It takes decades to get a new development built in California. All these environmentalist wacko groups stop development in its tracks. The reason developers build expensive places is because it cost them so much to get a development started that by the time they finally get to build something they need to recoup the lost cost.
California is not friendly to business. It is not friendly to developers. This is the most difficult state to get anything done in.
Plenty of examples exist of projects that started out as 1000's of acres of planned communities and by the time the environmentalist groups got involved, the state got involved, the NIMBY's got involved you end up with the developer donating a majority of the land to some land conservancy, the project is as best 10% of what it was going to be, and the developer is out lots of money for the land. The only thing to do is build luxury housing to recoup the cost of the project. In our area what that means is large homes on small lots.
The standard lot size in my city was 6,000 square feet, normally a 60' X 100' lot. By 2000 that was down to 4,800 square feet. Only thing is the size of the homes increased from 1600 square feet to 2400 square feet or larger. One gated neighborhood has 3,200 square feet to 4,000 square feet homes on lots ranging from 3,500 to 5,000 square feet. Size of homes is up, land is down, price is way up. The developers create these gated private communities and get away from the lot size that the city as as a standard.
We have other developments with what is called a patio home. The homes are almost touching they are so close.
Take out the red tape and allow developers to build and we will have plenty of homes in the state.
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