XP: San Francisco apartment rentals

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Peter Creasey

Peter Creasey
I'm told that the San Francisco apartment rental market is extremely tight thus making it difficult for someone moving into SF and wanting to rent an apartment. Even long lines that you need to be in front of to get a place.

My nephew just finished college and is starting a new job in SF and has asked me for advice as to how he should proceed.

I know real estate but not in San Francisco.

Can someone here suggest who my nephew might consult with or otherwise perhaps take on as a rental agent?

Thanks for any info!

. . . . . Pete
 
I know of cases where an airbnb relationship converted into longer-term rentals.

There are reported to be many apartments held vacant because it is nearly impossible to evict a tenant in SF.
 
Yes, the rental market in SF is very brutal. Is his new job near public transportation? If so (what's the company address?), he might have better luck finding a place in the East Bay or Peninsula.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:

There are reported to be many apartments held vacant because it is nearly impossible to evict a tenant in SF.
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Yes, thousands and thousands of units are off market because it is very difficult to evict and because pre-1979 buildings are subject to "rent stabilization" -- rent board sets maximum amount that rent can increase, in no case more than 4%.

originally posted by Larry Stein:
Yes, the rental market in SF is very brutal. Is his new job near public transportation? If so (what's the company address?), he might have better luck finding a place in the East Bay or Peninsula.
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Amazingly, Oakland rentals are now very tight, too.

I do know two recent college graduates who were able to find roommate situations without too much trouble, but finding an apt. for oneself is much, much more difficult right now. For several years, it was considerably cheaper to rent than to buy here. Last year, the situation flipped and it became cheaper to buy. But with recent price increases for both rentals and purchases, I'm not sure where it's at. In any case, inventories of both on the market are small.
 
It's best to have a packet with letters of recommendation when seeing a place. If all he has are various dorm RA's, he should get letters from each one.

As neighborhoods go, there is a negative correlation: as sun decreases, so does rent and the amount of roommates. I think the Inner Richmond is the most functional part of the city, especially if you don't have a ton of dough, but that's just me. Oakland, Berkeley, and Alameda are worthwhile options if the apartment has easy access to BART or the ferry. No one under age 55 should live on the Peninsula.

Not sure about rental agents. Craigslist, for online searches, is the only game in town. There's nothing like LA's Westside Rentals.
 
originally posted by Andy Beaton:
No one under age 55 should live on the Peninsula.
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Excuse me? It's not a fucking retirement community down here. Some of us, even when we were in our 20s and 30s, wanted a home in an area of peace and quiet. I lived in the Berkeley hills (actually Kensington) for 8 years from the age of 26-34. I wanted access to the action (Berkeley/SF), but I sure as hell didn't want to live in it.
 
Grimness can be expected when government intervention counters market forces.

All the good info provided in this thread thus far is much appreciated.

Thank you, one and all!

. . . . . Pete
 
originally posted by Peter Creasey:
Grimness can be expected when government intervention counters market forces.
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Rent control laws occur in 40 countries worldwide. They serve the purpose of protecting renters from real estate bubbles. Landlord profits are built in; they suffer only from visions that they might make more somehow.

The fact that the Ayn Rand Institute is against rent control is a good reason to have them.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Peter Creasey:
Grimness can be expected when government intervention counters market forces.
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Rent control laws occur in 40 countries worldwide. They serve the purpose of protecting renters from real estate bubbles. Landlord profits are built in; they suffer only from visions that they might make more somehow.

The fact that the Ayn Rand Institute is against rent control is a good reason to have them.
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Jeff -- The fact that the Ayn Rand Institute is against something doesn't ALWAYS mean that the something is good. You know that your statement is not logical; even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Here in SF, the way rent control/stabilization works means:

(1) uneven rents for two people living in similar apartments (with the one at the lower rent often being richer than the one paying the higher rent, meaning that the poorer person subsidizes the richer);

(2) incentive for people not to move, meaning that there are fewer units on the market, further increasing the rents for new renters;

(3) incentive for landlords not to fix up apartments;

(4) incentive for landlords not to rent out apartments (i.e., take them off the market), thereby further limiting the housing stock and driving up prices even more.

In many ways, it's a situation analogous to our infamous statewide Proposition 13 limitation on property tax increases. Both should be repealed.
 
originally posted by Claude Kolm:
(1) uneven rents for two people living in similar apartments (with the one at the lower rent often being richer than the one paying the higher rent, meaning that the poorer person subsidizes the richer);
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Each pays the required rent to the landlord, not to each other. (I'm sure you think this is an unsophisticated analysis but so is yours. "Often"? Really? Gots you some evidence of that?)

(2) incentive for people not to move, meaning that there are fewer units on the market, further increasing the rents for new renters;
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They gotta live somewhere so "not moving" is really "not giving the landlord an occasion for raising the rent", right?

(3) incentive for landlords not to fix up apartments;
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Nonsense. The bank that provided their mortgage verified the profitability of the building at the current rates (else they would not have loaned on it, eh?).

(4) incentive for landlords not to rent out apartments (i.e., take them off the market), thereby further limiting the housing stock and driving up prices even more.
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That is a quirk of the tax laws: that a landlord "earns" just as much by taking a loss on an unrented apartment as he does by collecting its rent. This ability, to manage assets and cash flow, is part of the fundamental superiority of the landlord's position.

Why are you such a good friend to landlords? How many landlords do you know that live without heat or hot water? Or, declare bankruptcy? (Answer: none!)

Attacking rent controls is Libertarian dog-eat-dog claptrap.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

Attacking rent controls is Libertarian dog-eat-dog claptrap.
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Aw, there's nothing inherently libertarian about a critique of rent control. There are plenty of Marxist analyses that make the same argument. Barton, for instance, wrote in the 1970s,

"Any action to protect tenants - code enforcement, rent control, due process in evictions, etc. - if it lowers the rate of return on investment, will lead to disinvestment. This will happen either immediately through decreased services, or later when major repairs become necessary and the landlord either prefers to invest his money elsewhere or is unable to obtain the money as mortgage lenders shift their investment to other sectors of the economy. Disinvestment and capital flight are the all-too-familiar responses of capital to any program of social reform which does not make provision for a transfer of ownership, a transfer of control over capital."

The foible, from this perspective, is believing that you can socialize housing provision while retaining private ownership. Engels made a similar argument in his Housing Question, although rent control doesn't figure prominently in his analysis...
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Claude Kolm:

(4) incentive for landlords not to rent out apartments (i.e., take them off the market), thereby further limiting the housing stock and driving up prices even more.
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That is a quirk of the tax laws: that a landlord "earns" just as much by taking a loss on an unrented apartment as he does by collecting its rent. This ability, to manage assets and cash flow, is part of the fundamental superiority of the landlord's position.
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re #4, I don't know what the incentive is, but I am unaware of the tax benefit you posit. There is no deduction federally or in NY or CA for "lost rent". I thought landlords would leave units unrented only if they were planning to sell the whole building and it made sense to sell it unrented (e.g., b/c it was goign to be torn down and rebuilt into something not subject to the rent restrictions) or there was some other way to get the units out of the rent restrictions (which is easier to do in NY than SF).

As for the broader proposition that rent control is somehow good for the less afluent, given that it is not (in NY or SF, at least) means tested, I thought many affordable housing advocates were against it and favoured direct subsidies to those below given income levels which could be funded by a surcharge on landlords ability to charge market rates or general tax revenue. The problem seems to be a lack of political will to take on, simultaneously, both renters in below market units (especially the more affluent and politically active ones) and the anti-tax (or pro-poverty, as I like to call them) folks.
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