patrick.net

If I were a landlord (and I am) 3% yoy increase is pretty good. Over a 10 year average rents on my tenants have gone up about that. I also I haven't evicted a tenant EVER. So if these folks in San Jose were getting rent increases over 3% per annum and kicked out of their homes unfairly... they were getting a raw deal and things needed to be fixed. So I'm a little puzzled as to the downside.

The free shit squatter nation have rights, too! Rent? It should be free shit, like everything else.

Indiana Jones says

exacerbating the very problems the supporters are hoping to eliminate.

The root cause is the combination of zoning&planning policies designed deliberately to prohibit constructing enough housing supply to meet demand at a reasonable price point. House owners vote to limit supply in order to prop up the prices of their assets and cash in on free "equity". Creditors finance politicians who will prop up the value of the collateral that secures their loans. Politicians want a high tax base, so they authorize office and retail construction but not housing. NIMBYs want stasis. Nouveau elitists don't want riff raff moving in on anything like equal terms and conditions, even in the city surrounded by vagrants: the bubble has created new classes of "haves" and "have nots," and the attitude of the former is "I've got mine." Santa Rosa is trying to cope with a problem that originates in San Francisco: it is absurd that a city with public transit does not allow enough housing along transit corridors, and instead "preserves" single-story garage like structures that have no significant value other than location. California should legislate a state building code applicable to any city with population over 100k, specifying that construction of housing that meets high state standards for quality and density can bypass municipal NIMBY zoning and planning rules, and "build baby build." You'd see SF prices moderate within a decade to genuinely affordable levels, but it won't happen because TPTB like the existing system just the way it is.

curious2 says

The root cause is the combination of zoning&planning policies designed deliberately to prohibit constructing enough housing supply to meet demand at a reasonable price point.

Goodness Gracious! That article was long! While the first 3/4 is very informative, the last 1/4 shows the writer's bias toward defending the tech takeover in SF.

As the article states, rent control forces the mom and pop landlords to subsidize 75% of the rental population in SF, while the unfortunate remaining 25% have to pay astronomical rent. This also decreases rental supply, as the rent-controlled tenants are unwilling and often unable to move since they will then have to pay market rates, leaving few available units. Couple it with Airbnb and you've got zero vacancy rates and people paying to live in someone's closet.