Thursday, September 12, 2019

California just made the housing crisis worse.

California Approves Statewide Rent Control to Ease Housing Crisis.

I have talked many times about living in a rent controlled building in East Palo Alto when I first started out. It was a pretty run down dilapidated place. I started out poor, and this was the only place I could afford. The landlord was always violating the rent ordnance, and the tenants were always in court with this guy. It wasn't until I became much older that I understood the dynamics of what was going on.

Under rent control, landlords can only raise the rent so much. But the city can raise property taxes AS MUCH AS THEY WANT.  Add to that repairs and it's easy to see why rent controlled buildings are always kind of crap.

Now, I don't know if this guy intended to be a scumbag or he was just a victim of circumstance. But rent control will do the opposite of what they want I can assure you of that. This will create a bigger housing problem. And I give you this example from this old post I wrote entitled - This is why rent control doesn't help the people it's suppose to.

Mr S. works with a guy who offered up this story:

"But the guy Mr S. talked to had a slightly different thing going on. He was an engineer making ~really~ good money. He lives in Union Square in SF in a rent controlled building. Allegedly the rent is half of market rate. He doesn't work in the city, so people were asking why he didn't just move. The traffic is insane.

He told Mr S. that he was ~never~ moving. They were going to bring out his dead body first. He had actually considered moving back to Europe for a while, but didn't want to lose his rent controlled place. So he pooled his family resources together, and they were going to pay the rent on the SF apartment while he was living in Europe. And obviously, if you can pay rent on two places, you aren't exactly poor."

Or THIS story out of San Fransisco.

U.S. government sues to evict couple from $15 million Presidio Heights mansion.

"Alexandra and Bruce Owen are being evicted under California’s Ellis Act, which allows landlords to get rid of tenants if a rental property is being taken off the market.

The property is a grand, 8,700-square-foot mansion with eight bathrooms, which Zillow estimates is worth $15.7 million and should rent for $14,000 per month. The couple was paying $5,523.92 per month in rent, according to the lawsuit." Emphasis mine.

THIS is the kind of crap that happens under rent control.

4 comments:

  1. "Mr S. works with a guy who offered up this story ..."

    Weird world: I've heard this same story from the travel end of it, with the exact same particulars, in a place far from California.

    What California's legislature has done is pseudo-smart in the short term but really stupid in the long term: they've grandfathered in everyone in rent controlled buildings in such a way that they won't want to end California residency.

    And so the people you think shouldn't be the ones who should benefit are in fact the ones that the California legislature had in mind all along: the people earning high enough incomes that the State of California doesn't want them to declare a new tax residence.

    There are a lot of people who would otherwise check out of Hotel California except that they've managed to wrangle a deal that offsets the tax punishments they're getting otherwise.

    The measure is absolutely meant to screw over poor people by making sure that there's absolutely no hope of checking out of Hotel California except by extraordinary means or just giving up and hopping on a bus near-broke.

    As much as you might not like my thinking of California as The People's Concentration Camp Republic of California, that's how it behaves in terms of economics: praise and honors for the rentier classes, special exemptions for certain profitable niches, and pretty much just fuck everyone else because they're economic prisoners without a voice.

    That's a pretty good summary of the SoCal Water Baron situation as well.

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  2. That's a really interesting comment. You've heard of people in other countries admitting to the above? I have never heard that before.

    "As much as you might not like my thinking of California"

    That is projection on your part. I don't care what anyone thinks of California. I live here and feel the same way. I've come to believe that the reason there are no conservatives in California is because we all eventually get tired of the bullshit and leave. Then of course we are hated by the State we leave to. So in that term - it really sucks for us. I can't even describe how much.

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  3. I watched Stefan Molyneuxs 'Sunset in California'. I'm glad I don't live there. I would imagine if they enforced immigration law that could help free up some housing. Even the illegals have to live somewhere and not all of them live on the street.

    It looks like the sane people tried to do something in the early 90's with Prop 187 and then the leftist went to court. It's been downhill since then I would guess.

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  4. It's really more than the illegals. California consistently incentives people who do the wrong thing over people who do the right thing. Pretty much demoralizing good hard working citizens. Why bother doing the right thing if you are going to get punished?

    It's like the homeless issue. They get to rob, assault, and sleep in a businesses doorway making it so people don't want to come to that business. I've read so many stories lately of businesses closing because they just can't take it anymore. People that do the wrong ting prevail over those who contribute to society. It's super messed up. And the population is so dumb and passive they mob up on anyone who tries to say anything.

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