undefined | Better HN

0 pointsxxxpupugo6y ago0 comments

Well said. It is weird to see so many people jumping out to lay the accusations of 'uninformed!', 'never works', etc...

In fact, the CA, especially in bay area, the rent is already top among this country. 7% on top of that is still a quite sizable increase. And it is hilarious to see those (aspiring) landlords playing the blame-the-game-not-the-player rhetoric here to blame the government not allowing more houses to be built, while themselves being one of the biggest opponents to such initiative.

0 comments

bko6y ago

It is uninformed. Note that in a survey of economists ~80% of economists disagreed with the statement below and only 2% agreed:

> Local ordinances that limit rent increases for some rental housing units, such as in New York and San Francisco, have had a positive impact over the past three decades on the amount and quality of broadly affordable rental housing in cities that have used them. [0]

The negative effects of price controls, especially when it comes to rents is the most unifying issue in economics. Rent control isn't a new idea, but there is agreement that it's a bad idea. It's not the landlords who say this, its the people who study this stuff. Paul Krugman wrote about this in 2000 [1].

Putting in arbitrary controls on prices to fight cost increases is about as effective as putting arbitrary controls on thermometers to fight global warming.

[0] http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/rent-control

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-rent...

chmod7756y ago

Your quote is completely irrelevant to this discussion, because increasing "amount and quality of broadly affordable rental housing" is not the goal of this law as described by your GP.

The law is supposed to give families enough time to adjust or move away and find affordable housing elsewhere, without becoming bankrupt in the meantime.

A completely different goal. Quoting opinions on something that is at best tangentially related does nothing.

leftyted6y ago

How is "economists broadly agree that rent control is bad" irrelevant to a discussion of rent control?

The intention of the law is what's irrelevant. What matters is what the law will actually do. Economists broadly agree that rent control will drive down supply. Are they right? Is this law different? Time will tell. But there's every reason to be skeptical.

1 more reply

YPCrumble6y ago

Saying "7% on top of that is still a quite sizable increase" is not a fact, it's an opinion. Furthermore it's like my employer telling me "you should take this 7% raise and be happy even if the market dictates a 20% raise. It's still a quite sizable increase".

Then you make an ad-hominem argument about landlords being hypocrites which isn't relevant. Landlords act in the best interest of landlords.

I don't yet know what I think about the bill so I'm reading the HN comments to form an opinion. The points you're making aren't very convincing.

tibbon6y ago

It’s fair to say that 7% is faster than wages increase for many people on average. Why should my rent outpace my income?

xxxpupugoOP6y ago

> Landlords act in the best interest of landlords.

That is the point. Landlords will gather information or their side of evidence to push for their arguments, as well as ones that called for rent control.

All players are just playing our own shares in the game here. Is rent control necessarily good or bad in this particular case? Only future number can verify that. But because the landlord-just-be-landlord arguments, it is probably not good for the renters to take the other side of stories for granted.

Let the bullet fly for a moment.

rongenre6y ago

"blame-the-game-not-the-player" is so typical of polite SF (and greater CA). A lot of homeowners are quietly rubbing their hands knowing their houses suddenly got more valuable.

My experience with SF rent control is that it's really only valuable if you've got limited resources. I lived there for 5 years, saw market rent double, and my landlady politely asked me to pay a "generous discount from market", which was about a 50% increase and I declined - it would have busted my budget.

Then eviction proceedings started: completely made up, and I lawyered up. I was threatened with OMI (there's no defense if they actually do move in), and I negotiated a settlement. Because if I'd won I'd have a super hostile situation ending in OMI, and if I'd lost I'd have killed a substantial portion of my savings.

If I'd had nothing to lose, I'd have hung on for dear life.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse