Gentrification happens, people get bitter when they don't own their homes. This is normal economics that happens in every major city (e.g. Williamsburg, Brooklyn, East Side, Austin, Mississippi District, Portland, Mission, SF, etc., etc., etc.). Much of this has to do with the end of white flight, which should probably be considered a good thing. The laws in SF are as renter friendly as you can get in this country. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.
> The laws in SF are as renter friendly as you can get in this country.
That depends what you mean. Rent control, for example, can be viewed as extremely friendly to the current renters but extremely unfriendly to would-be renters and the rental market as a whole.
I would love to work there, but the rents look completely ridiculous compared to the rest of the country. I live in the heart of a wealthy urban area, and still pay close to a third what I would pay in SF. I am an engineer, so I could afford to live there, but saving would be impossible. It is a bit worrying that the tech community seems to be so irresponsible with where they choose to set up shop. Sure, an office in downtown Manhattan would be awesome, but is it really necessary for a non profitable startup?
I lived in SF 2011-2012, and have lived in NYC since then. Let me tell ya, my cost of living now in Manhattan is substantially lower than what it was in SF.
NYC isn't cheap, but it isn't quite the level of insanity as San Francisco.
I wouldn't say that saving is impossible on an engineer's salary, but I suppose it's all relative on how much you want to save and what your "lifestyle expenses" are outside of rent.
I'm a Googler living in SF, and my landlord recently tried to drive me out of my apartment, so I think I have an informed perspective on this.
It's not as simple as you make it out to be. The laws being renter friendly are helpful but they don't solve anything. If I hadn't had the time and money to try to fight this I would probably be looking for a new place right now.
My point is that i used to live in Austin, where "trying to kick you out of the apartment" involves not offering you a lease for the following year, because, say, they don't like your haircut. That is, any reason as long as it's not because you are a protected class or for retaliation for requesting repairs. If that doesn't work, they could just double, or triple, your rent.
The idea that you actually get to perpetually live in an apartment even if the owner doesn't want you there is quite generous. The idea that it's socially deemed "the right thing to do" is rather progressive.
I was responding to this, specifically: "The laws in SF are as renter friendly as you can get in this country. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about."
If those tenant friendly laws are de facto easy to work around - and they are, particularly for poorer tenants - then they are significantly weaker than they seem. That's what the fuss is about. Poorer people get driven out because they don't have the time and money to fight their landlords trying to double their rent, whether legal or not. Richer people like me are able to fight it and win.
I don't think you understand California or San Francisco rental laws. They do not say you get to perpetually live in an apartment even if the owner doesn't want you there. They control how much a landlord can raise rent, and limit some forms of eviction. But they also have many exceptions, and the burden can be on the tenant to prove the landlord is wrong.
I am in a rent controlled building in SF. Our building recently got sold and the new owner evicted the lowest paying tenant. She (the new owner) has to live in the unit for two years before she can re-rent the unit, but considering the previous tenant had been there for 15-20 years, the increased rent she will get after those two years will more than make up for the lost rent (assuming that is her intention). Additionally, she is starting to repair/update the building. I was initially excited about this (the building is a bit old/outdated), but after reading the rent control laws, found out that she is allowed to pass on 100% of the cost to the tenants (through a 5% annual increase until the costs are paid off), and additionally, can deduct 100% of the cost from her taxes. Also, I found out what the sale price of the building was, and after doing a little back of the napkin calculations, realized that her mortgage is probably going to be less than what she collects in rent from the remaining two tenants. So for the cost of the down payment, the landlord is getting a place to live, all of the building upgrades paid for by the tenants, the mortgage paid for by the tenants, and a small income from what is left over from the rent as well as any capital gains on the building. This sounds like a pretty good deal (and I was actually upset that I didn't move on it myself).
I agree with the sentiment that rent control can result in an increase in market prices. But it's not as if the landlords are getting completely screwed, they still have avenues in which they can evict tenants, profitably upgrade the building, and achieve close to market rents. Additionally, a major factor that gets overlooked in the rent control debate is that the 'secondary market' (rooms for rent in rent controlled units) provides fairly affordable housing for young newcomers. Almost everybody I know who lives in SF does so by renting a room in a rent controlled unit that they found through friends or through craigslist. These rooms are significantly cheaper than market rates (rent control by-laws actually require that any rooms in a rent controlled unit must be re-rented at an evenly split price, or normalized price based on square footage, not that everyone abides by those rules), and probably the only reason people with marginal means can afford to live here. So, while rent control may result in an increase in market prices, it also creates a secondary market that allows for economic diversity to continue to exist in SF.
I am somewhat split on rent control, but my gut feeling tells me it is the right thing to do. Allowing landlords to arbitrarily raise rent or randomly evict tenants is unfair and disruptive to people's lives. Rent control allows for a secondary market that lets young and lower income folks get a foot in the door. I think the 'lazy rent controlled tenant who pays nothing because they lived there for 30 years' is largely a myth (or such a rarity that they have only minimal impact on the macro trends) because rent control still allows for evictions, just with a bit more red tape. Also, another factor that doesn't get discussed is the effect of rent control on a downward market. Because rents aren't ruthlessly increased to market rates during the boom times, it means people who get laid off in the bad times can actually afford to stick around and look for a new job for a while, rather than having to lift anchor and move somewhere cheaper. From what I recall, the vacancy rate in SF rose a little bit during the great recession, but no where near as bad as other places.
The idea that you actually get to perpetually live in an apartment even if the owner doesn't want you there is quite generous. The idea that it's socially deemed "the right thing to do" is rather progressive.
this concept confounds me (and I stayed in a nice rent controlled apt in SF last week). still, someone else's property, which they invested in/ care for, which they no longer get to control.
IMHO - these are all symptoms of problems that have more to do with astronomical salaries - a symptom of a perceived labor shortage - a symptom of the 'gold rush', et al.
Well, it kind of sucks that your options in the US are gentrification or Detroitification. It's part of the price we pay for not having the social safety nets and public investment in infrastructure that other countries have.
In Canada, similar gentrification is also happening rapidly in Toronto/Vancouver. Detroitification happened on the Canadian east coast (when the fishing industry died). And we have better "social safety nets". I don't think social programs manage to keep cities alive or the same as they were, nor would the overall country benefit from trying harder to do so.
The main difference w/ Toronto vs SF is that Toronto has a liberal condo building policy so more affordable housing is being built by a (relatively) booming real estate industry. Whereas SF's property development growth has nowhere near reflected its population/income boom.
The problem in SF is there is no middle class or family housing being built. All these fancy new buildings going up are high margin 4k/mo rent and some percentage of section 8. There's nothing going up even in the range of 1800-2800 1 or 2BR places.
What would probably be reasonable is 1400/mo studio, 2000/mo 1BR, 2800/mo 2BR. What would be ideal is more like 1200/mo, 1700/mo, 2400/mo respectively. Yeah, that's still expensive, but it's a newer building and hopefully older buildings would be around 80% of that. But that's not going to happen.
Some additional policies like penalizing companies for letting new places be unrented for some amount of time, or allowing developers to (temporarily) displace SRO occupants while they demolish and rebuild higher density buildings in the Tenderloin could possibly help change behaviors towards increasing the supply of more modest housing, but that's not going to happen any time soon. In the meantime, the city is fine letting people do what they want at top as long as it benefits the people at the bottom, with no plans to do anything for people in between.
And Atlantic Canadian cities are still great places to live because Canada has invested in social safety nets, sane urban development, and not abandoning entire cities. 'Detroitification' is a not-even-wrong way to describe how any population centre in Atlantic Canada has fared.
I could be wrong here, but I thought much of SF is considered "historic district" or something, therefore new, more dense housing is not being build, thus rents rise like crazy?
I don't think he's wrong. All of the new development seems to be along Market (hell in a one mile stretch of Market near my house, there are THREE huge residential developments going up); i.e., you don't see any new high-rise developments going up in the Mission district (which I believe is designated "historic").
That's a gross exaggeration. Until you show me a number of burned out hulks of cars from a "Tuesday" in a US city, it's your stereotypes against my actual examples.
I'm curious to what you think the other options are?
Gentrification doesn't mean pushing all residents and culture out of a place - but it typically flows to areas with the least resistance (and location/ proximity).
So if you have an economically desolate area, and gentrification is at one end of the scale with 'detroitification' at the other - what is in the middle?
The whole point of this (and a hundred other) articles is that the US is losing its "middle."
Increasingly, you are either rich or poor. A have or a have not. Most HN readers are haves or (because you are still young) think you will be haves. But life doesn't always turn out according to plan.
I think everyone's just trying to make sense of the SF real estate market, tech industry workers included. The average rental unit price in SF is now higher than Manhattan, last time I checked.
Hopefully, talking about the craziness of the SF real estate market will lead to more solutions, e.g. public pressure to make commuting from the East bay more feasible ala Brooklyn and Manhattan.
