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It was a true dilemma for members of the city’s Rental Housing Committee on Monday night. On one hand, they needed to devise a way to fund the $2.4 million annual budget for the city’s rent control program. But they also faced fierce resistance from a seething crowd of property owners who complained that a proposed annual fee on apartments would be unfair.
So the committee landed on what appeared to be the only palatable solution — have the city foot the bill.
In an odd decision that drew many confused stares, the committee voted 3-1 to formally request that the Mountain View city government fund at least $1.2 million, or half the cost, of administering the city’s new rent control program for its first 14 months.
“We should ask the city to reimburse us for half the potential fee based on the fact this is part of the city charter,” said committee member Tom Means, who proposed the idea. “This is benefiting some of your tenants and voting residents, so we think you should throw in half the budget.”
To call this idea a long shot would be an understatement. Nearly all City Council members firmly opposed the rent control initiative, which won voter approval last November. Some council members have aggressively demanded that the rental committee immediately pay back a $430,000 start-up loan from the city.
Mayor Ken Rosenberg said there would be scant support for cutting the rental program another check.
“It seems unlikely that the city would provide funding to benefit landlords,” he said in an email. “City Council has made clear that it expects to be paid back for the expenses it has fronted.”
The Rental Housing Committee operates independently from the rest of Mountain View’s city government, with its own staffing and budget. This was deliberate because the authors of the rent control law didn’t want the city’s political leaders to exert control over the program.
But that structure also forces the rental program to be financially self-sufficient. Last month, the Rental Housing Committee reluctantly approved a $2.4 million budget despite criticisms that the projected costs were excessive. To pay that sum, the committee’s staff proposed a new $155 fee on all apartments.
At the Monday night meeting, the rental committee wanted to see if landlords could legally pass through some portion of that fee onto tenants — raising their rent beyond normal limits, in other words. The committee’s hired attorneys gave a clear answer: No.
“We don’t believe the (rent control law) allows the pass-through of the rental housing fee to tenants,” said Karen Tiedemann of the firm Goldfarb & Lipman. “The law limits rent increases and there’s no provision for an additional rent increase due to a pass-through.”
Landlords could factor in the fee as part of a petition process to raise rents higher, Tiedemann said. But that idea did little to alleviate the concerns of a crowd of frustrated landlords in the room, who dismissed the petition process as too complex. Many speakers said it made sense for tenants to pay at least half the fee; others demanded that renters bear all the costs since they were the program’s beneficiaries.
“That we should have to bear the costs for having our pockets picked is a travesty of justice,” said Curtis Conroy, an apartment owner.
Those speakers found sympathetic ears. A man who identified himself as representing East Coast investors walked up to the dais to promote his firm’s services in helping landlords “exit” their position.
Committee members Matthew Grunewald and Vanessa Honey echoed the landlords’ concerns, saying it was only fair to split the cost between tenants and landlords. Despite the attorneys’ advice, they signaled support for putting half the cost on tenants, possibly using a loophole in the law suggested by landlords.
“I feel empowered by the other people who found holes in the (rent control law),” Grunewald said. “A 50-50 split is fair, it’s symbolic … and it’s not an excessive rent increase.”
On the other side, committee member Evan Ortiz warned his colleagues that they should have learned their lesson after previous episodes when they disregarded their own attorneys’ advice, resulting in “significant legal fees.” He was referring to the fight to establish when the rent control law took effect, which resulted in three separate lawsuits.
During this debate, Means pitched his idea of asking the city to foot the bill, which appeared to come as a surprise to everyone in the room. He acknowledged the idea was likely to be shot down, but he described it as better than moving forward with a plan that could invite more lawsuits. By asking for the city’s support, he said, council members would have the opportunity to weigh for themselves the fairness of putting all the fees on landlords. He proposed having the committee’s chair, Vanessa Honey, write a letter to formally make this request.
With the committee lacking consensus for any other option, Means’ idea won the day. It was approved in a 3-1 vote with Ortiz opposed. Committee member Emily Ramos abstained.
The committee also kicked the can down the road on the related issue of allowing an additional rent increase to compensate landlords for the four-month period not covered by Consumer Price Index adjustments after rents were rolled back to October 2015 rates. The extra rent adjustment would only cover the period between October 2015 and February 2016 when rents were effectively frozen, before raises tied to the CPI kicked in.
But the committee couldn’t reach a decision because members disagreed over the length of time that needed to be counted. Grunewald and Honey insisted this increase should span a 10-month period, giving landlords an extra 3 percent. Other committee members, as well as the group’s attorneys, said this period should be only four months, equaling 0.6 percent.
The committee voted 3-2, with Ortiz and Ramos opposed, to table the discussion in order for staff to explore more options.
And millions of dollars will be spent annually to administer this program, which doesn’t necessarily serve those most in need, but simply whomever happened to be residing in one of those pre-1995 units when the ordinance passed. And all those new units being built = $$$.
What a bureaucratic $hit show.
Look for more of those smaller, pre-1995 complexes to continue to be sold and razed. Unintended consequences and all that jazz.
Everyone is being hopelessly naive if they can’t see what Tom Means is trying to pull. He’s been inflating costs consistently, rather than trying to make the committee work efficiently. Typical libertarian playbook, gain control of government, make it work inefficiently, then point to its inefficiency as a reason to roll it back.
Why is Tom Means still involved in this? He is intentionally trying to wreck the program he has been entrusted to implement efficiently. Honestly, Vanessa Honey is being bulldozed by him and is not demonstrating she capable of overseeing the implementation. They are continuing to roll over for landlords even when the counsel warns them it is illegal. This is why the legal fees are soooo much.
What a bunch of clowns. They are just wasting money trying to make the program fail. This should be punishable.
I hear they are trying to screw Mobile home renters out of being included. Why would they not include the families that need protection the most. How can they have any idea how much the program will cost without knowing who is included? The RHC needs new leadership.
Hahahaha, to however thinks that the government can work efficiently is in a dream world.
Only thing that works efficiently is free economics, which controls itself by what the people can afford. Communistic rent control does not work, it’s just another one of those yeah, it sounds good, but doesn’t work in the long run. And in the end it will be the renters who will lose the most.
Pretty soon the government will want to control the prices of everything the way we are heading. Totally backwards thinking.
I don’t see why not just charge it all to those tenants who are the money beneficiaries in all this. That’s logically and morally just.
They’ll benefit from paying rents lower than a free market would pay, lower than what their neighbors arriving later will pay, and far lower than tenants in new apartments pay (now that legally mandated artificially low rent suppresses normal turnover on the older units, raising the competition and the rents at the minority of newer apartments that are exempt from rent control). The law gives beneficiary tenants a discount, yet they balk at sharing it ?!?
(I’ve never been a landlord, was a renter for decades, and argued against rent control for most of that time because I saw the side effects.)
No wonder millennials love socialism. You old conservatives don’t have any answers, and just waste our money with your corruption.
It’s not a handout for the city budget to support a city activity. The city council made decisions before the rent board was created which incurred costs. There’s no reason those costs should be paid by fees on landlords. Certainly all the legal costs should be paid out of the city’s legal budget, for defending the charter.
Just wondering how many people would vote for a cap on how much one can profit from the sale of a house in Mountain View. If you’re willing to cap a landlord’s profit, why not cap home owner’s profits too. Every time I see one of these socialist programs grow legs, I think “yeah – it’s fine when it hurts someone else…”. When non-smokers voting to ban smoking it’s a great idea, but banning oversized SUV’s would never fly, right?
You must have moved long ago if you don’t think banning oversized SUVs would fly. Enjoy wherever you moved to!
Thank you Shame. Things must have changed quite a bit if banning SUV’s would fly – everyone needed one to see over the other cars when I was there (2000 – 2013). I miss the great weather and beautiful scenery, but not the hectic life style, politics, and ridiculous property taxes. Seriously – if the majority of people voted for rent control, I can only surmise that either the majority of people are renting or it’s time for homeowners to put THEIR money where their mouths are and cap home sale profits ;). Personally, I’m for the free economy and think rent control is a bad idea, but if it’s good for the goose, it should be good for the gander.
I can’t wait for the apartment rows along California and Latham to be torn down! If rent control makes it happen, then I support rent control.
Homeowners capped their costs long ago, it’s called Prop 13. Like you said, good for the goose, good for the gander.
Prop 13 started out as a good idea – if it didn’t exist, people would be taxed out of their homes. However, it really puts the screws to new home owners and why you should be able to pass your property tax rate to your children is beyond me. The fact that you could afford a home doesn’t give your children some divine right to own a home.
OMG give it a rest! Every time I see your name I know that a two page rambling diatribe will follow so I skip over your comment. I assume most other readers do the same. Didn’t anybody ever teach you that “less is more”? Learn to be concise and maybe somebody will listen to you.
@ Bad Headline – actually it is a handout if the taxpayers have to pay for the bloated administration of this ill conceived law. The only beneficiaries are the renters that are already in place so they should pay for it in its entirety.
The only reason this is costing money is due to the wasteful spending initiated by Mr. Means. Typical libertarian playbook, gain control of government, make it work inefficiently, then point to its inefficiency as a reason to roll it back.
Quiet. You can hear the gods laughing. The social science gods all of whom use rent control as their number one lesson plan in economics. I’d hate to be a rent controller in Mountain View. You see the techies take a couple of college level economics classes. In any case, all the old apartment houses need to go anyway. Lead in the piping, poorly constructed, they only have a 40 economic life in any case. The new workers need condos anyway to get the tax deduction on their mortgages. Tom Means for governor. California is bankrupt and we need an economist to straighten things out. As head of the rent control committee Means is getting great experience in entitlement addicted California. George Drysdale social science teacher and initiator
To “@ The Business Man:”
You nailed it. And it’s not like the guy hasn’t been called on this before. He’s been referred to Strunk & White (“vigorous writing is CONCISE” — emphasis added; S&W advocated not low word count per se, but rather a sensibility that the words be effective — “that each word tell.”)
But he Just Doesn’t Get It, and as if to underline that fact, responds even to friendly tips on concision with yet more rambling essays that everyone skips over. Sometimes even two of them in a row (I wouldn’t have believed it, but just look at the comment thread here!) Those who are determined not to understand a reality, even one clear to most people, usually succeed.
@The Business Man,
For me, your comments are a conversation killer…is that your objective?
If not, and you desire to engage in civil discourse – actual conversation, which I welcome – I would to suggest more concise comments. If there is something more in depth that you would like people to read then provide a link.
Also, when you cut and paste paragraphs at a time directly from other sites without providing attribution or links…well, that’s just bad form. Instead, I would suggest snipping a relevant sentence or two and then posting the link to the source material for people to read for themselves.
There is a reason why in the legal profession they are called ‘briefs’ and judges often impose page limits on these briefs. Seriously, they do…and it’s to force the lawyers to be concise, get to the point and stop wasting the judge’s time.
I would be more inclined to respond on these forums, and perhaps to you, if you were able to find a way to be more concise and engaging.
Carry on.
“”LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND STATISTICS” is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent’s point.”
Another, that I learned many years ago from my social studies teacher, is “Figures can’t lie, but liars can figure.”
I agree that “Business Man” rambles (and he twists his replies in an attempt to appear knowledgeable). Anyone can find “facts” to defend their position if they look hard enough. But PLEASE stop telling him to stop posting… it only encourages him to post MORE and we then have to scroll even more endlessly to skip his self-important replies.
The best action, I’ve found, is just skip over his posts and read original thought from other posters – both pro and con. (I don’t think I’m alone, as he gets few “likes” on his diatribes.) Maybe eventually he’ll get the hint?
I know he’ll now post in reply to THIS. My apologies in advance.
Harold, thank you for the information. I’d pay way more than that for the Eliminator triple X to take out Business man’s lengthy unreadable postings.
As far as this housing fee goes, the tenants should pay for it along with the Mortgage, property taxes, water and garbage, gardener, maintenance and improvements and then guarantee the landlord a fair rate of return of 5%. Everyone wants fair housing, that’s fair.
I own Commercial triple net property like shopping centers and that is how those properties are structured. It works and everyone pays their fair share and the landlord receives his return on investment.
This would solve everyones dilemma.
Bob, I saw someone post this elsewhere, but it’s clear to everyone reading this that you’ve never owned a square foot of property in your life. Can’t you find a better hobby than roleplaying someone more successful than yourself? I’m enjoying it because you make landlords look terrible and will keep Measure V in place, but maybe you’d be more successful in life if you actually strive for something. God bless!
Shame,
I know it’s hard for you to accept that some Landlords have exited Mountain View because of rent control but I’m one of many that have. I know many more Landlords that are in the process of moving money out and many, many more that are thinking about it. Maybe you should go to one of the RHC meetings and see all those landlords that are mad as hell because they lost their future incomes and returns on investments. They will move too, leaving pre 1995 housing in disrepair or torn down for new 1.5 million dollar homes. That’s your future in Mountain View now.
I was smart and made a lot of money down there, around 10 Million if you count in depreciation writeoffs and monthly income and want to continue making money in other bay area markets and throughout the U.S. I’m a capitalist and believe in the free market and only invest in free markets. And yes, I have 50 million in capital sitting in residential and commercial properties local and across the U.S.
But you’re right on one point, I’ve never “owned a square foot of property in my life”. It’s always been between 1000 and 60,000 square feet depending on the property.
Businessman, your doomsday theories and anti government rhetoric are entertaining but aren’t helpful in the discussion but you actually made a good point in the following post.
You said,”What evidence to do have that establishes that 5% should be a minimum rate of return? Isn’t that what the market is supposed to determine? It almost sounds like you want to “socialize” the housing market, where the state dictates that there is a “minimum” rate of return?”
Well I agree but you contradict yourself because you’re in favor of capping a maximum rate of return on rental housing and yes it is socialism. Dang, you got it!!!
So, your position is clear. You want to limit the landlord’s profits by government intervention and also not guaranteeing a fair return. What you want is a economic breakdown of the rental housing market in your community. You’re an anarchist.
I think I’ve seen you in Berkeley breaking out business windows and burning cars and throwing rocks at cops with tear gas.
There you go again, Bob, fabricating stories to overcompensate for your abject lack of success in life. If you dedicated one iota of the effort you expend fabulating into hard work, you might have made something of yourself. I do appreciate your continued efforts to keep Measure V in place, however.
It’d have been much cheaper had Mr. Means not decided to make the committee operate as inefficiently as possible, see the recent Guest Opinion. Yet, as predicted, the costs incurred by Mr. Means are being used to further his goal of eliminating rent control in Mountain View, by hook or by crook. Typical libertarianism.
Business man,
Your arguments are ingenious but flawed because you state facts but have no reference point to make such claims.
For example, you said, “I do support a “MARKET CORRECTION” because the property values are “INFLATED”.
How do you know this? Is this inflated rental market (Mountain View) over inflated compared to other rental markets in the bay area, California or the U.S..?
It seems to me that real estate everywhere in our country has been inflating along with rents so where do you get your reference point from to determine what’s over inflated??
Our markets are determined by what one will sell at and one will buy at, simple.
So, if you believe Mountain View is over inflated… It will take care of itself without intervention with a market correction to get in line with competition.
Also, you state, “You do know that the VOTERS are a capitalist MARKET FORCE”
If this was true, they would save their own money and buy their own housing. Right?
And then they would buy another one to rent out and make profits on and so on. Right?
So, I don’t understand the premise of your argument that the voters are capitalists?
What we have here was a mob that wanted to redistribute or people’s wealth, get together and vote it in. They have the majority because of the percentage of renters. I don’t believe that is capitalism or these people are capitalists. Maybe they want to believe they are but they only wanted something for themselves and overlooked being a capitalist for entitlements. A capitalist doesn’t pick and choose when to be a capitalist and when to vote for entitlements. Give me a break!!
You also stated, “Thus is the MARKET demands this kind of regulation, it is not a SOCIALIST GOVERNMENTAL ACT. IT IS SIMPLY THE MARKET FORCING THE UPON ITSELF AN INCOME CONTROL.”
So, you believe this is still a free market but it needs regulation? There is no such thing as a regulated free market. There are markets that are regulated by government. That’s what the Rental Housing Committee is; a governing body that was set up by the city council which is government run. Nice try Business man!
I find it interesting that you call out others for not responding when you clearly could not and would not respond to my post on the other thread about what is actually and truly happening with properties in cities facing rent control votes.
And as a side note, it appears people in Pacifica have much more common sense and are more educated about the long term effects of rent control. It was soundly defeated last week.
Bay wide,
I can tell you from my own experience. We have been raising all rents to be close to market in all other cities. We don’t want to get caught with our pants down like some of the poor Landlords in Mountain View did. My rents are all within $150 of market in the $2200 – $2800 rent range and $200 in the $2900 – $3600 range. This is based on the other 130 units I have on the peninsula.
Rent control’s merits don’t figure into the issue of the city paying the legal costs of implementing the change to the charter. The rental control modification to the charter was approved by the electorate, which is true regardless of the merits of rent control. It’s really mind boggling that the city council appointed someone like Tom Means who ran up the operating costs of the implementation, and then failed to cover those costs. It’s not a handout. It’s an ethical business practice on the part of the city administration.
Once again, you’re rambling on with the same exact response. I told you, my job is to find my tenants the best home within their means and budget while balancing the investment of my owners. And I’m going to say it again, I have quite a few several properties that are owned by older “mom and pop”, people who bought with the intent of having retirement income. They understand the value of keeping long term tenants and have kept their rents well below market value however the fear/concern of their city voting in rent control is moving them to increase their rents.
You can argue this all you want. It’s not fair, they’re greeedy. I mean really, how dare an investor protect their investment!
It’s truth. It’s happening. And if you think I’m going to provide you confidential information about both my owners and my tenants addresses and rates, well…..think on.
It’s amazing how people like Bob and Bay-wide come in with their doom and gloom, but when push comes to shove, they have nothing to back up their stories. Strange, I wonder why…
Yet again, though, I’m glad that they keep posting making landlords look like greedy, amoral people with no regards for our community. Keep going!
Shame,
I’m not sure of why you doubt me but if you have something to add of substance go ahead.
I was answering a question posted with real time answers to someone that has a real time business question regarding the effects of rent control on other communities.
If you want my identity forget it. I don’t ask for yours and doubt you because you won’t give me your parcel # or name?
Is this another fake news tactic of the lefties?
Keep talking about how you want to gouge residents and take all their money. Regardless of whether you’re actually a landlord , it helps bolster the case of everyone who wants to preserve rent control in Mountain View, and it makes you look like a fool. That you’re not actually what you claim to be is just icing on the cake.
“Shame”- at first you had something of substance to say, but now you’re just badgering another poster, and it’s ridiculous to read. You sound – even if that is not your intent – immature and jealous of the poster “Bob”.
The rental control Board should have representatives of all opinions, so it can at least LOOK democratic. I don’t want a pack of “yes men” that just vote to give anything asked. I don’t know anyone on the Board, but I believe a variety of opinions are vital to fairly represent all residents in the City.
I was hoping to see facts here – but they are few and far between. All I see is that this rent control is going to cost we taxpayers of Mountain View a massive bundle. I’d much rather use this money to subsidize down payments for teachers, fire, and police so they could afford to live in the city in which they work. This has spun out of control.
MVWoman, you may not have been paying attention, but Bob is just someone that roleplays as a landlord and talks about vacations in Monaco. I have to admit, it’s probably a fun gimmick, but I have limited patience for people that mock the poor.
You should reserve your gripes about expenses for Mr. Means, since he’s been driving up costs to create just the reaction you had. We’re he a faithful public servant, the committee would be running quite efficiently.
MVWoman,
Your right. Anyone that thinks that you can spend $2.5 million a year on people to solve a housing shortage that do nothing more than try to manage the shortage of housing is fooling themselves. Their not creating anything or offering any product to the community. Their passing paperwork around and that is all you’re going to get.
What’s crazy is that the voters got schmuked into voting for this fantasy with expectations that if you have a Rental Housing Committee and rent control somehow all this new housing would appear and everyone would live happily ever after.
It’s just the opposite because you have more money exiting affordable housing now than placement of money entering into it in Mountain View. What happened is you ran all the investors off Mountain View! That private money is what feeds your housing stock?
This will continue until one day there will be a museum featuring a 4 plex of affordable housing down by the computer museum. You will be able to show your children what it looked like then.
What children? Housing is too expensive to afford to have kids. Engineers here are splitting apartments with multiple roommates just trying to stay in the area.
But I digress, you were saying about how important it is for your artificially scarce housing investment to be profitable?
Yimby,
Are you suggesting that I should work for nothing?
I needed profits for my business to continue in your community. I moved my money outa there and am already into San Ramon where the schools are superb and the asian population is moving to.
You know they love American education and I want to be there to greet them when they get here with their suitcases of money.
Do you work for free and donate all your money to charity?
Yimby, don’t be so hard on Bob. This comments section is all he has. He gets to escape his mundane, shut-in existence and pretend to be a property mogul, flying off to far-away lands and gloating about his vast wealth.
“What children? Housing is too expensive to afford to have kids. Engineers here are splitting apartments with multiple roommates just trying to stay in the area. ”
Why do they allow themselves to be exploited like that? Tech companies cry a river of crocodile tears about not finding enough workers, but a tight supply is supposed to result in price increase, which in this case would mean at least a living wage for tech workers, which clearly the tech employers aren’t willing to offer. Instead of coming here, why are young engineers not flocking to other tech hubs where they can have a decent standard of living and raise families?
Shame,
I have a big problem.
I have to buy 14 houses at around 950k each in the next 90 days to conform in my 1031 exchange so I don’t pay taxes to our government.
You thought you life is hard? I have to reinvest all my Mountain View property money.
Shame,
I left out the complexities that I need to consider under the new tax proposal that’s going through the senate as we speak and will be approved in some form early next year that the government is going to reduce the interest deduction from 1 million to $500,000.
So as a resale later, I want to buy homes that regular Joes can buy from me and get most of their interest deduction. You thought this was easy?
Bob, the first step is admitting you have a problem. You’ve claimed in the past that you were completely out of Mountain View as of November last year, so why are you re-investing that money just now?
Now, I’m sure there’s some information you left out, not that you’re forgetting the stories you’ve told, but you only had 180 days to exchange the property for a 1031, which means you missed the boat on that Mountain View money by about 180 days.
I’m glad you’re still keeping up the show, though, since you keep making all the real landlords look bad. Great job!
Shame,
Your right this has been going on for months but this is how these deals are.
Some of the property is tied to other deals by developers and some is even out of state that must close escrow prior to properties in Mountain View.
I have 1 deal that the adjacent property owner must close escrow first before I can because of a family trust issue that removes contingencies on another family property being sold under a S corp. in Indiana.
Then I have a commercial property being sold in a partnership in Springfield Illinois which is in a LLC which is being bought by corporate Tractor Supply and resold to a new investor. That deal is worth 3.8 million to me.
The list goes on and on.
Bob, none of that explains how you’re getting a 1031 exchange on your Mountain View property. You were out of the city a year ago, so “reinvesting that Mountain View money” would have had to have been done half a year ago. So which is it?
You’re making the especially revealing move that, when you’re caught in a lie, you start flooding with irrelevant details. It is cute watching you flail, though, so please proceed.
Your facts are incorrect but that’s what liberals do.
I have been in contract since September on my first offerings.
I have several properties that are selling.
@Mel
I was born here, and I’m not going to leave my home just because a bunch of selfish home owners who bought in the 80s and 90s and decided no more growth was needed feel like the millennial generation shouldn’t get to live in the Bay Area, too. I’m going to stick around and be a vote for removing restrictions on housing construction so that eventually we can own a place to live here, too.
That’s more like it, Bob. When you’re down and your stories don’t quite match up, attack the liberals. It keeps the parts of the audience that haven’t been paying attention on your side.
So your story now is that you’re finally getting out of Mountain View after a year of Measure V? Doesn’t sound like you’re a quick-thinking business person at all…
“I was born here, and I’m not going to leave my home”
Ok @YIMBY, now I get it. By “engineers” you meant yourself. Being from here puts you in a small minority. Most techies working in the Bay Area come from far away. However, being from here also puts you in the large and growing group of locals who are being squeezed out.
“vote for removing restrictions on housing construction so that eventually we can own a place to live here, too.”
Good luck with that. Every new batch of housing construction in our region brings units that are smaller than before. City planners are talking about towers of stack-and-pack. Do you really want to raise a family in a 250 sq ft microunit?
There are two major factors driving up housing costs. One is the unbridled population explosion caused by tech companies bringing in huge numbers of workers from far away. The other is sellout of our country’s land to foreign speculators. The latter has almost no upper limit, and removing restrictions on housing construction only adds fuel to that fire. One journalist has noticed:
“developers have razed the original tract homes to build two-story houses that crowd right up to the property lines, with a median sale price of $2.6 million. Shuttle buses largely filled with Chinese nationals looking for property spin through on house-hunting sprees, bragging about the proximity to Steve Jobs’s manse and Facebook and Google. ”
https://www.topic.com/life-inside-the-rvs-of-silicon-valley
The Bay Area isn’t the only region that’s affected; cities in Canada are experiencing the same thing and some of them, notably Toronto and Vancouver, are starting to take a more citizen-oriented approach to city planning by, among other things, putting a bit of a damper on the foreign sellout.
“In Vancouver, we hope to get ahead of the same pressures San Francisco is facing. We’re taking action to limit speculative investment and put our housing stock to its best use by implementing Canada’s first Empty Homes Tax, a 1 percent annual tax on empty or underused residential properties. We are preparing an ambitious 10-year housing strategy to lay the foundation for a diverse and equitable city.”
http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/Vancouver-looks-to-collaborate-with-San-Francisco-12327632.php
The above article from the San Francisco Chronicle on Nov. 2 is behind a paywall, but there are other googleable reports.
I was born here, and I’m not going to leave my home just because a bunch of selfish home owners who bought in the 80s and 90s and decided no more growth was needed feel like the millennial generation shouldn’t get to live in the Bay Area, too. I’m going to stick around and be a vote for removing restrictions on housing construction so that eventually we can own a place to live here, too.
@Mel
No Mel, not just myself, and you can shut down your projection of your mindset onto me right now. This is the thing that seems to separate our generations, but you guys seemingly only look out for yourselves individually rather than in the context of a society of other people.
The only reason units are getting smaller and smaller is because multi-family housing construction is trying to deal with an ever worsening housing crisis in an environment where home owners aggressively fight against zoning changes that allow for taller buildings. So you have a demand for more and more units in a building that’s too short for what it really needs to be.
I know so many people my age who straight up pushing off having kids for a decade, if ever, because housing costs are eating into what money they would have had to support that lifestyle. I know barely any engineers between 22-35 who own even a condo, or who live alone. Packing yourself in with a bunch of other people in a shared apartment is a way of life now.
No, this isn’t the fault of tech companies. Those are some of the last few well paying jobs. It’s the fault of an entrenched group of people who bought up homes early on and then made it difficult for any more homes to get built. Populations grow, cities grow, trying to fight this just leads to pain for people. You should be advocating for the planned smart growth that should have taken place decades ago and support high density construction near mass transit nodes so that a whole generation of people aren’t forced out the area.
PBS recently did an excellent segment titled, ‘Ever-growing tech giants have changed the pace and price of life in Silicon Valley’, although it really only scratches the surface of the illness that has befallen the valley. However, the gist of the problem is spelled out pretty clearly in the video. I’ll summarize, tech giant(s) relative unchecked power combined with developer greed = loss of quality of life, loss of somewhat ‘normal’ cost of living, loss of lower and middle income residents and loss of sense of community.
It is worth the time to view the segment.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/ever-growing-tech-giants-have-changed-the-pace-and-price-of-life-in-silicon-valley
Quotes from the short eight minute segment:
Spencer Michels:
“She says high tech companies need to explore building far outside the expensive metro areas, and they also have a responsibility.”
Michelle Wilde Anderson:
“In the modern condition of American inequality and lower- paid workers and super- concentrated wealth, do they [tech giants] have a moral obligation to start really trying to address some of our social problems? Yes. And most importantly they have tremendous capacity to be part of the solution.”
When areas cluster around a job specialization, the workers in that industry have more competition for their work and more opportunities. Making workers have to move around to different areas for different jobs locks them in to that job and makes it harder to leave for other ones. The solution to the housing crisis is not job sprawl.
“the workers in that industry have more competition for their work and more opportunities. ”
But it’s not working like that is it? If it were, workers would seek those opportunities where they’re paid a living wage instead of “Packing [themselves] in with a bunch of other people in a shared apartment”.
Silicon Valley is and has been the incubator for innovation in the tech industry. That’s not going to change so long as Stanford and UC Berkeley are here.
The San Jose Property Rights Initiative. Google’s major contribution to society is the cleaning up of the largest investment market in the world: the American housing market. Because of he disclosure Google provides it is destroying rent control first in Mountain View and then throughout California. This is not forty years ago when rent control became the fad in California. Where were the “leaders” of the rent control movement when this all was discussed in high school economics? It’s all over the internet about what happens when rent control go in. Welcome to 2017 “leaders.”
George Drysdale initiator and land economist
“The solution to the housing crisis is not job sprawl. ”
Are you even listening to what you’re saying? Americans need jobs all across the country, not just in one small region. And have you given any thought to what you’ll do when you hit your late 30’s and are aged out of tech jobs and replaced with the next batch of aspiring young hopefuls?
“Silicon Valley is and has been the incubator for innovation in the tech industry. That’s not going to change so long as Stanford and UC Berkeley are here. ”
But where are those opportunities you mentioned? Tech workers being packed in with a bunch of people in a shared apartment looks a lot like techies are being paid starvation wages.
@Mel
Do you even understand how job markets work? Google opens offices where engineers want to work. If there were a bunch of engineers clamoring to move to rural Michigan, there’d be a Google office there. The Bay Area is where a lot of engineers want to live because it already has a vibrant tech culture, and there’s a strong tech foundation here. It’s self-reinforcing.
Being aged out of the tech force happens when engineers don’t update their skills. I’ve worked with plenty of older engineers who were keeping up with the latest technologies.
Engineers are not paid starvation wages. Housing is simply so expensive that living alone is egregiously costly. This has become a fact of life here now, but the political winds are changing. Some good housing bills already made it through the state legislature, and I’ll be there to advocate to my congressman for more, and to vote for pro-growth and upzoning initiatives whenever they come my way. Hopefully in time we’ll upzone and the generation after me won’t have as hard of a time planting roots here as you’ve made it for us.
The PBS segment linked above was interesting and spot on, I thought.
“Spencer Michels:
One thing Google does want is more housing. It is pushing the city to approve 9,800 new units, some of them below market rate, though the city council wants to slash that number, fearing increased traffic.”
I thought this quote from the PBS segment (linked in a post above) was somewhat ironic in light of google’s very recent threat to city council regarding the 9,850 units of housing in North Bayshore currently being studied. In a nutshell the google rep was telling the city you better give us 800,000SF of additional office space development rights or we won’t allow any housing development on land we own in North Bayshore. End of conversation.
https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2017/09/27/google-throws-uncertainty-into-north-bayshore-housing-plans
Less than two months ago Google representative Joe Van Belleghem, senior design director at Google, stood at the lectern at the city council meeting and threatened, er stated, “Just to be clear: no new office; no new residential,”.
And this was interesting as well, from the PBS segment:
“Michelle Wilde Anderson:
The anxiety about a company town comes from two things. One is a worry that we’re going to over-rely on single companies or single industries. That’s kind of a Detroit fear. I think part of it is just the fear that Silicon Valley’s people themselves will become a monoculture of tech workers.”
~~ I totally get this concern, not only in Mountain View but concerns about the valley in general becoming a “monoculture of tech workers” and in the process losing a important part of what has always made this area rich in diversity — diversity of employment opportunities, diversity of thought, diversity of income. Sadly, that diversity is rapidly vanishing.
Time for some serious introspection.
FYI, Yimby I know of a several large tech companies *here* who have difficult time keeping their young hires deployed in the valley more than a couple of years. The young hires often request (and are granted) a transfer to one of the company’s other – less expensive cost of living locations (typically outside of CA). These hires don’t leave their companies, they leave the region and transferred to a location with a better cost of living, staying with their employer. It’s been that way for a L-O-N-G time…well over a decade.
@Public Service
So engineers are already transferring out because of housing costs, and yet it’s still incredibly expensive to live here. Sounds like an imperfect solution compared to just building higher density housing.
‘Google opens offices where engineers want to work.”
Since when? Google and all the big powerful tech companies do what they want, and everyone follows. They have us all very well trained.
“If there were a bunch of engineers clamoring to move to rural Michigan, there’d be a Google office there.”
If Google (et al) opened an office in rural Michigan, it wouldn’t be rural for very long.
“Engineers are not paid starvation wages. Housing is simply so expensive that living alone is egregiously costly.”
And the tech companies sitting on those ginormous tax-sheltered offshore profits are paying their supposedly valued engineers far below a living wage. You said people move to the Bay Area because of the opportunities, but there doesn’t seem to be enough opportunity for people to even be able to afford a decent lifestyle.
“Hopefully in time we’ll upzone and the generation after me won’t have as hard of a time planting roots here as you’ve made it for us.”
You really don’t know what I have done or haven’t done, do you? But if you look just a little bit at history, you’ll see that past generations, when faced with a miserable situation at home, have packed up and left, seeking adventure and opportunity. Has your generation simply given up?
@Yimby:
I am sure there are many factors that go into requests for transfers (sometimes the employee would like to get closer to their family/where they came from) but they seem to often involve the employee getting married or planning to start a family, and the employee (and the spouse) want to be in a location where they have an opportunity to purchase a home. I can’t think of one (domestic) transfer where the employee who has transferred did not go on to purchase a home within a couple of years of their transfer. A couple of recent transfers even closed on their homes prior to their relocation.
The type of homes they are purchasing are typically detached single family homes, some are townhomes, but all have been able to purchase. It seems that a big factor when planning to start a family (raise children) is the ability to own a home. They all seem pretty content with relocating and staying with their current employer because of the upside for them. These kinds of transfers and diversity of locations throughout the country (and globally) is a win for the company and a win for the employee.
The government doesn’t need any help from Tom Means to demonstrate its insufficiency, it does so all by itself everyday
In response to Beautiful you said:
“And millions of dollars will be spent annually to administer this program, which doesn’t necessarily serve those most in need, but simply whomever happened to be residing in one of those pre-1995 units when the ordinance passed. And all those new units being built = $$$. “
However now that Costa Hawkins will have a repeal inititive. The CSFRA may in fact be applied to ALL APARTMENTS you went on to say:
“Look for more of those smaller, pre-1995 complexes to continue to be sold and razed. Unintended consequences and all that jazz.”
Simple enough, it may not matter when the apartments were built in just about one year, all will be required to rent roll backs, and rent refunds as of Dec. 23rd, 2016. NOW THAT WILL BE A REALLY PAINFUL BILL.
In response to Old MV you said:
“I hear they are trying to screw Mobile home renters out of being included. Why would they not include the families that need protection the most. How can they have any idea how much the program will cost without knowing who is included? The RHC needs new leadership.”
I am in total agreement. The board is in fact trying to provoke a fight between apartment tenants and mobile homes to break up what should be a united team. WE MUST NOT LET THAT HAPPEN. THE APARTMENT TENANTS AND THE MOBILE HOME TENANTS MUST STAND TOGETHER AS SUPORT EACH OTHER.
San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley split their annual registration fees approximately 50/50% between tenant and landlord. They ALL have a pass-through policy. The law office retained by the RHC (Goldfarb & Lipman) is full of mountainous, steamy piles of pasture residue.
Nothing in the CSFRA prohibits a pass-thru or could possibly be construed as prohibiting the RHC from making such a regulation a lawful act.
The voters of Mountain View wanted this onerous, bureaucratic boondoggle. Let the residents, WHO ARE THE SOLE BENEFICIARIES OF THE CHARTER AMENDMENT, pay for it.
In response to Humble observer you said:
“I don’t see why not just charge it all to those tenants who are the money beneficiaries in all this. That’s logically and morally just.”
That is not correct because the fee allows for FREE petitions. So one landlord can submit as many petitions he or she wishes for not charge. Thus the fee is NOT SOLELY for the benefit of a tenants at all, it is more equally useful for the landlords. You went on to say:
“They’ll benefit from paying rents lower than a free market would pay, lower than what their neighbors arriving later will pay, and far lower than tenants in new apartments pay (now that legally mandated artificially low rent suppresses normal turnover on the older units, raising the competition and the rents at the minority of newer apartments that are exempt from rent control). The law gives beneficiary tenants a discount, yet they balk at sharing it ?!?”
The ballot passed because there were enough citizens to vote in favor of public scrutiny regarding potential price gouging in the apartment market. Granted it currently applies to only older buildings, but if the Cota Hawkins repeal ballot succeeds, it will automatically integrate all renters in Mountain View. And from what I can get regarding the current trends and the fact that 59% of the Californians are looking for work outside the state, that would should a significant likelihood of the repeal passing. You also said:
“(I’ve never been a landlord, was a renter for decades, and argued against rent control for most of that time because I saw the side effects.)”
Please explain how you were harmed by rent control? What were the side effects you saw? And how did you establish conclusive proof that rent control was the cause of the problems? I just want to understand you.
In response to Steve Old Town you said:
“The government doesn’t need any help from Tom Means to demonstrate its insufficiency, it does so all by itself everyday”
There is a difference between insufficiency and what deliberate malfunction is. I simply observe that the behavior by Tom Means and Venessa Honey appear to be the latter given that:
I noticed on 3 occasions Vanessa Honey claimed there were 3 board members in favor of the “fee-sharing” approach. Not only was that not true, but on those occasions Tom Means had to correct her each time. It almost looked like she wanted to “will” the board into attempting what the board could NOT do.
The CSFRA being a City Charter, cannot be modified by either the RHC, the City Council or the City Attorney. Tom me it was attempting to reject the rules and in a sense reality on behalf of the RHC.
In response to Repeal Rent Control you said:
“San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley split their annual registration fees approximately 50/50% between tenant and landlord. They ALL have a pass-through policy.”
Yes in their rent control ordinance it is specifically established that that can happen. However, the CSFRA did not include any language or provision to establish that the City Attorney, the City Council, Nor the Rental Housing Committee were empowered to modify the CSFRA to provide such a practice. That is requiring an amendment initiative to be passed by the voters. The CSFRA ALLOWS PETITIONS to recover from UNAVOIDABLR INCREASES IN EXPENSES. That was by design, and does allow for landlords to request a pass-through as long as they are in compliance with the CSFRA, and the petition itself is free to them. You also said:
“The law office retained by the RHC (Goldfarb & Lipman) is full of mountainous, steamy piles of pasture residue.”
This is not going to assist you in your point of view, you also said:
“Nothing in the CSFRA prohibits a pass-thru or could possibly be construed as prohibiting the RHC from making such a regulation a lawful act.”
If you read the following:
“Section 1702. – Definitions.
(p) Rent. All periodic payments and all nonmonetary consideration including, but not limited to, the fair market value of goods, labor performed or services rendered to or for the benefit of the Landlord under a Rental Housing Agreement concerning the use or occupancy of a Rental Unit and premises and attendant Housing Services, including all payment and consideration demanded or paid for parking, Utility Charges, pets, furniture, and/or subletting.”
Under this definition any “rent” is all inclusive, so any “increase” due to fee cost sharing is a “rent increase”
“Section 1709. – Rental housing committee.
Powers and Duties. The Committee shall have the following powers and duties:
(1) Set Rents at FAIR AND EQUITABLE LEVELS to achieve the purposes of this Article. NOTWITHSTANDING ANY OTHER PROVISION OF THIS ARTICLE, the Committee shall have the authority to adopt regulations authorizing Rent increases and/or adjustments required by state or federal law.”
However the clause “NOTWITHSTANDING ANY OTHER PROVISION OF THIS ARTICLE” means that if any statement restricts rent increases under the Powers and duties of the board, this would in effect block any activity that falls outside this definition.
“Section 1707. – Rent increases pursuant to annual general adjustment.
“(a) Annual General Adjustment. No later than June 30th each year, the Committee shall announce the amount of the Annual General Adjustment, which shall be effective as of September 1st of that year. The Annual General Adjustment is the percentage by which the Rent for existing tenancies in Covered Rental Units may be increased each year, subject to the limitations of this Article.”
(1) The Annual General Adjustment shall be equal to one hundred percent (100%) of the percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index (All Urban Consumers, San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose region, or any successor designation of that index that may later be adopted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) as reported and published by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, for the twelve-month period ending as of March of the current year. The Annual General Adjustment shall be rounded to the nearest one-tenth of a percent.
(2) Subparagraph 1 of this Subsection notwithstanding, in no event shall the Annual General Adjustment be less than two percent (2%) or more than five percent (5%).
(3) Pursuant to Subsection (a) herein, the Committee’s first announcement of an Annual General Adjustment shall be made no later than June 30, 2017. Accordingly, the first Rent increase that a Landlord may impose pursuant to this Article shall not take effect prior to September 1, 2017.
(b) One Rent Increase Per Year. No more than one Rent increase per twelve-month period may be imposed on a Tenant.
(c) Notice of Rent Increase Required. Allowable Rent increases pursuant to the Annual General Adjustment shall become effective only after the Landlord provides written notice to the Tenant in the manner prescribed by law, with at least thirty (30) days’ advance written notice.”
Thus the powers of the RHC board namely section 1709(1) means that section 1707(a)(1) prohibits any regulation for “automatic” cost sharing regarding the fees. The only option afforded by the CSFRA is as stated:
“Section 1710. – Petitions for individual rent adjustment—bases.
A Landlord or a Tenant may file a Petition with the Committee seeking adjustment, either upward or downward, of the Rent for any given tenancy in accordance with the standards set forth in this Section, and using the procedures set forth in Section 1711 herein and implementing regulations. A Petition shall be on a form provided by the Committee and, if made by the Landlord, shall include a declaration by the Landlord that the Rental Unit complies with all requirements of this Article.
(a) Petition for Upward Adjustment—Fair Rate of Return: To effectuate the purposes of this Article and the requirements of law, a Landlord may file a Petition for an upward adjustment of the Rent to ensure a fair and reasonable rate of return. It is the intent of this Article that individual upward adjustments in Rent be granted only when the Landlord demonstrates that such adjustments are necessary to provide the Landlord with a fair rate of return. The Committee shall promulgate regulations to further govern Petitions filed pursuant to this Subsection in accordance with law and the purposes of this Article.
(1) Prerequisites. No upward adjustment of Rent shall be authorized by a Hearing Officer or the Committee under this Subsection if the Landlord:
(A) HAS CONTINUED TO FAIL TO COMPLY, AFTER ORDER OF THE COMMITTEE OR OTHER AUTHORITY, WITH ANY PROVISIONS OF THIS ARTICLE OR ORDERS OR REGULATIONS ISSUED THEREUNDER; OR
(B) HAS FAILED TO MAINTAIN THE RENTAL UNIT IN COMPLIANCE WITH CIVIL CODE SECTIONS 1941.1 ET SEQ. AND HEALTH AND SAFETY CODE SECTIONS 17920.3 AND 17920.10.
(2) Fair Rate of Return – Factors. In making any upward adjustment to the Rent based upon a Landlord’s Petition to ensure a fair rate of return, the Hearing Officer or Committee shall consider relevant factors, including but not limited to, the following:
(B) UNAVOIDABLE INCREASES OR ANY DECREASES IN MAINTENANCE AND OPERATING EXPENSES;”
It appears this is the only action that will provide a fee “cost-sharing” with a tenant. You finally said:
“The voters of Mountain View wanted this onerous, bureaucratic boondoggle. Let the residents, WHO ARE THE SOLE BENEFICIARIES OF THE CHARTER AMENDMENT, pay for it.”
It appears that that is simply not allowed without a petition to the RHC.
In response to @ The Business Man you said:
“OMG give it a rest! Every time I see your name I know that a two page rambling diatribe will follow so I skip over your comment. I assume most other readers do the same. Didn’t anybody ever teach you that “less is more”? Learn to be concise and maybe somebody will listen to you.”
It is very easy for someone to make statements short when they are not true. Because in effect they are not required to substantiate there point of view. If effect, MISINFORMATION CAN BE DISTRIBUTED EASILY WITHIN 144 OR 280 CHARACTERS BECAUSE IT REQUIRES NO RESEARCH OR EVIDENCE.
I am FORCED to point out evidence and information that contradicts claims. But I also must demonstrate or explain that those comments are “FAKE NEWS” because that is just playing in the same sandbox. I instead work with “real” information. Of course it aggravates those who do not want that to be discussed.
I do not expect those who disagree with me to read my comments. Those who take the topic seriously are going to be inclined to do so. My question is, how seriously are people taking the topic that the news article is discussing?
In response to george Drysdale you said:
“Quiet. You can hear the gods laughing. The social science gods all of whom use rent control as their number one lesson plan in economics.”
Of course you fail to mention Economics IS A SOCIAL SCIENCE. You cannot determine scientific cause and effect in social sciences, only promote a point of view that is supported by “STATISTICAL MEANS”. Do you remember?
“”LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND STATISTICS” is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent’s point.
The term was popularised in United States by Mark Twain (among others), who attributed it to the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” However, the phrase is not found in any of Disraeli’s works and the earliest known appearances were years after his death. Several other people have been listed as originators of the quote, and it is often erroneously attributed to Twain himself.[1] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics)
And further:
The phrase has been used in a number of popular expositions, including:
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: The Manipulation of Public Opinion in America, by Michael Wheeler (W.W. Norton & Co. 1976; Dell paperback 1978).
Quotes, Damned Quotes ….. some of them to do with statistics (1985), by John Bibby – an attempt to untangle the history of this quotation.
Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists (2001), by University of Delaware sociologist Joel Best (ISBN 978-0520219786).
How to Lie with Statistics (1954) by Darrell Huff.
The essay The Median Isn’t the Message by Stephen Jay Gould begins by repeating this quote. Gould explains how the statistic that peritoneal mesothelioma, the form of cancer with which he was diagnosed in 1982, has a “median survival time of eight months” is misleading.[12]”
I would not be so certain regarding your “scientific” basis of your point of view.
“I’d hate to be a rent controller in Mountain View. You see the techies take a couple of college level economics classes.”
So, you demonstrate absolutely no respect for others that can be a symptom of a personality disorder or evidence of a sociopathic mind. I am not claiming you are, but maybe you should consider getting a professional opinion on it? You said:
“In any case, all the old apartment houses need to go anyway. Lead in the piping, poorly constructed, they only have a 40 economic life in any case.”
Your saying that any building older than 40 years should be destroyed, what about the homes in Mountain View, should they also be destroyed? Where I lived in Massachusetts there are houses more than 200 years old, and they are great places, definitely economically sustainable. There is no rational basis to claim apartments cannot be the same. You also said:
“The new workers need condos anyway to get the tax deduction on their mortgages.”
Not really, if one were to file schedule C in the IRS, especially since most tech workers are contractors, the cost of rent can be used directly to reduce the net earnings of a taxpayer. But of course you do not want to discuss that. You also said:
“Tom Means for governor. California is bankrupt and we need an economist to straighten things out. As head of the rent control committee Means is getting great experience in entitlement addicted California. “
You have a right to propose that Tom Means be governor. But you will need to invest into his campaign, and actively work to achieve that task. Are you willing to do so?
“George Drysdale social science teacher and initiator”
Didn’t you just criticize social sciences? I guess you just shot your foot.
I kinda love the fact that your only criticism is my “length” of my posts.
WHY, BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT DISPUTING MY INFORMATION.
I admit I can probably be shorter, but I try not to waste much time. I typically voice dictate my writing, so all I do is speak most of it. If I take more than 30 min to respond, I simply will post what I have at that time.
Unless you have substantive information that contradicts my point of view, the only thing your demonstrating is the “kill the messenger” strategy of political science.
Repartee,
Sorry about not including the link, it was the same as the one above.
So if you looked at the Wiki article towards the bottom, you would have seen the books list.
I am sorry, should have said (Ditto)
If I could just cut and paste a picture, I would.
In response to MVWoman you said:
“I agree that “Business Man” rambles (and he twists his replies in an attempt to appear knowledgeable).”
I agree, I am in no way an expert in this situation. But I do chose to provide counter points using objective research regarding misinformation that is expressed by those anonymous posters here. Everyone knows that I am Steven Goldstein, I am a real person, that simply represents myself. I am in no way an expert. You said:
“Anyone can find “facts” to defend their position if they look hard enough. But PLEASE stop telling him to stop posting… it only encourages him to post MORE and we then have to scroll even more endlessly to skip his self-important replies. “
You are very correct, if those with a counter point of view would do exactly what you suggest, there would be a better discussion here. I find it very disappointing that instead of doing research, there are those that simply complain that my postings are too long. You also said:
“The best action, I’ve found, is just skip over his posts and read original thought from other posters – both pro and con. (I don’t think I’m alone, as he gets few “likes” on his diatribes.) Maybe eventually he’ll get the hint? “
As long as no one posts points of view that can be researched to determine whether their comments actually make sense, then I will be very likely to not make lengthy posts. But as long as anyone tries to argue information that makes no sense, I will always demonstrate HOW it doesn’t make any sense. All I do is analyze the points expressed, and demonstrate an alternative argument based on at least “some” research. Most people who post, simply make claims regarding the situation without any substantiation.
In any case, I really don’t care if people read my posts, I just express my opinion anyway because I have the right to do so. If others want to respond to my point of view, I will happily listen, in fact in my posts, you clearly see I am. I address all of their points, point by point. And you have to admit, I do it with no disrespect. To me I don’t even look at if my comments are “liked”. That is nothing but a flawed means of demonstrating agreement. Anyone can continually “like” an article multiple times. Al you need to do is flush your browser cookies and temp files and you can “re-like” a post. So it doesn’t matter in the real world.
In response to Harold you said:
“Yes, businessman rants too much and takes up valuable screen space.
I found a software product that you can download that eliminates his posts on Amazon for $19.95 called eliminator triple X.”
You remind me of the book “1984” and the slogans “War is peace”, “Freedom is slavery”, and “Ignorance is strength”. What does this mean? Well lets look at them and lets see.
“War is peace”
The concept of “war is peace” is used today by the United States of America and NATO, when they engage in the so called “preemptive wars.” The term itself is a paradox, because one cannot start a war in order to prevent it.( http://humansarefree.com/2013/01/what-means-war-is-peace-freedom-is.html)
We currently are in a “perpetual war” and yet are told we are cuurently not at war but “peace” by our government.
“Freedom is slavery”
“”Freedom is slavery” is the very foundation of our global society, and the biggest and most ignored problem of a so called democracy. All human beings are in fact “currency slaves,” meaning that they must work to survive (though physical labor could have been abolished by now), but at the same time, almost all of them strongly believe they are free.”( “Freedom is slavery” is the very foundation of our global society, and the biggest and most ignored problem of a so called democracy. All human beings are in fact “currency slaves,” meaning that they must work to survive (though physical labor could have been abolished by now), but at the same time, almost all of them strongly believe they are free.)
This seems to describe what our current situation is in the U.S. today. And anyone trying to make the public aware of this is criticized vehemently. That is because those who have the power of currency are vulnerable because the “currency” in the U.S. is only paper, it is a “floating” product and can lose its value in the market.
Finally “Ignorance is strength”,
“Finally, the strength given by ignorance is highly encouraged in our society: never question authority, law, legal institutions, school books, history, main stream media or main stream scientific communities.”( http://humansarefree.com/2013/01/what-means-war-is-peace-freedom-is.html)
Thus those who are adamantly opposed to any thoer point of view will employ this tactic. It is simply a normal psychological defense, but used the wrong way winds up putting the individual in a more dangerous situation.
What we are living in today is a state of double-think that is so severe, that we are in the process of self destruction. The “Federal Debt” will overcome the amount of “U.S. dollars” in circulation because the currency is redistributed from the “poor” to the “wealthy”. The “wealthy” in fact do not know how to use it wisely, they do not have a realistic expectations, so more debt will occur. This is the reality, we do not have trickle-down economics, we have government sponsored redistribution of currency to the “wealthy”.
In response to Bob you said:
“As far as this housing fee goes, the tenants should pay for it along with the Mortgage, property taxes, water and garbage, gardener, maintenance and improvements and then guarantee the landlord a fair rate of return of 5%. Everyone wants fair housing, that’s fair.”
What evidence to do have that establishes that 5% should be a minimum rate of return? Isn’t that what the market is supposed to determine? It almost sounds like you want to “socialize” the housing market, where the state dictates that there is a “minimum” rate of return?
Also, what your arguing is that the “investor” in effect simply collects the 5% earnings based on the fact that they in effect “paid nothing” for it. Your premise clearly indicates that you expect everyone else to reimburse you for 100% of your costs. The “free-market” doesn’t seem to agree with that idea. If you think this is a realistic expectation, that is your point of view. But realize that you cannot dictate that everyone must live in your expectations of reality. You also said:
“I own Commercial triple net property like shopping centers and that is how those properties are structured. It works and everyone pays their fair share and the landlord receives his return on investment.”
I think you meant “Triple NNN” properties or “triple net lease” properties. Of course, those are non-residential in nature, they are “commercial” properties like retail and industrial.
What you don’t seem to be aware of is that the “retail” market is in a critical tailspin. Just look up retail businesses going out of business (http://time.com/money/4812870/retailers-bankruptcy-risk-sears-amazon/) , and even worse entire malls are closing up(http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-malls-closing-20170531-story.html). Like Vallco Shopping Mall in Cupertino which the current story is:
“Vallco Shopping Mall (formerly called Cupertino Square and Vallco Fashion Park) is a three-level dead mall located in Cupertino, California, United States. It was formerly anchored by Macy’s, Sears, and J.C. Penney, all of which have departed. As of May 2017, the mall is almost entirely vacant, with AMC Theatres, Cupertino Ice Center, Bowlmor Lanes, Cold Stone Creamery, Dynasty Seafood Restaurant, and Benihana as the only remaining tenants.
A PLAN TO REBUILD VALLCO AS A MIXED-USE DEVELOPMENT WITH RETAIL, HOUSING, AND OFFICE SPACE APPEARS TO BE CANCELLED AFTER CUPERTINO VOTERS REJECTED MEASURE D ON THE NOVEMBER 2016 BALLOT.[1] After obtaining community input in the planning phase,[2] the project ran into significant push-back from citizens who wanted to freeze the site as retail-only, citing concerns about traffic and schools.[3]”( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallco_Shopping_Mall) You finally said:
“This would solve everyones dilemma.”
Does this in fact describe a solution?
In response to Bob you said:
“Well I agree but you contradict yourself because you’re in favor of capping a maximum rate of return on rental housing and yes it is socialism. Dang, you got it!!!”
I was expecting you to say this, I already had the answer. The City Government, nor the County, State, or Federal government “legilslated” this rent control. It was done by the VOTERS via BALLOT INTIATIVE. You do know that the VOTERS are a capitalist MARKET FORCE. Thus is the MARKET demands this kind of regulation, it is not a SOCIALIST GOVERNMENTAL ACT. IT IS SIMPLY THE MARKET FORCING THE UPON ITSELF AN INCOME CONTROL. You must understand that I think about what I write and anticipate your reactions. And I have a plan to deal with it. You said:
“So, your position is clear. You want to limit the landlord’s profits by government intervention and also not guaranteeing a fair return.”
EVERYONE KNOWS THAT THE TERM “FAIR RATE OF RETURN” IS SUBJECTIVE. TO THE LANDLORDS< THE FAIR RATE OF RETURN SHOULD BE INDEFINITE. THE FAIR RATE OF RETURN IS SIMPLY NOT OBJECTIVLY DEFINED. IT MAKES IT VERY DIFFICULT TO DEFINE WHAT IS IN FACT THE MARKETS FAIR RATE OF RETURN. As far as making a profit, that is NOT THE GOVERNMENTS CONCERN. That is dependent on the skill in which one is as efficient as they can be to maximize their profit. That is the PROPERTY OWNERS RESPONSIBILITY AND NOT THE GOVERNMENT. You went on to say:
“ What you want is a economic breakdown of the rental housing market in your community. You’re an anarchist.”
You mischaracterize my point of view, I do support a “MARKET CORRECTION” because the property values are “INFLATED”. This again is a normal function of the market, and NOT PROMOTING ANARCHY. Of course you know that. You laso stated:
“I think I’ve seen you in Berkeley breaking out business windows and burning cars and throwing rocks at cops with tear gas.”
Please share the pictures? I’d love to see them. I have never been a participant in any of those kinds of activity.
MY work history is that I have been entrusted to manage classified governmental information via a U.S. Security Clearance. I have never failed to uphold my responsibility regarding it. I am also a CISSP which entails significant code of conduct requirements that I have performed without failure. Amongst all of this, I have been in positions where I could have done far more worse damage than what you describe, but my conduct is nothing but exemplary. I have in fact been pivotal in protecting and securing vast millions of dollars’ worth of private and public properties.
Another attempt to “kill the messenger”, which fails miserably.
Imagine if the $2.5M first year RHC budget was instead spent subsidizing rent for the most needy residents of Mountain View. Since the budget will surely increase exponentially over the ensuing years, the rental housing assistance would grow as well.
Instead, the money will be spent on a bureaucracy of paper pushers, overpaid hearing officers, spiraling legal fees and travel expenses to attend far-away conferences in NYC, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and perhaps a Caribbean cruise.
I suspect landlords in Mt. View would willingly pay $155+/unit per year to help the less fortunate in the community. Many already do with below market rents they’re now locked into. Rent control solves nothing, creates more challenges than it resolves and ultimately lines the pockets of people who don’t even need rent stabilization.
Fire away BusinessMan. Further fill this comment thread with your whirligig bobbin of unwelcome and pleonastic remarks.
In response to Repeal Rent Control you said:
“Imagine if the $2.5M first year RHC budget was instead spent subsidizing rent for the most needy residents of Mountain View.”
So you want to give the City funds directly to landlords for overinflated properties. Such nonsense because once the property values correct in the next coming recession, it will simply be lost public funds. At least this $2.5M will be used for both the landlords and the tenants regarding binding arbitration and transparency regarding possible fraud being done against the tenants. You make no financial sense.
“Since the budget will surely increase exponentially over the ensuing years, the rental housing assistance would grow as well.”
So you want to establish a means to steal from the public funds indefinitely. Since when are landlords entitled to public money directly? This is the capitalist system, the landlords simply must solve their own problems and not rely on the public funds to bail them out for bad decisions. You said:
“Instead, the money will be spent on a bureaucracy of paper pushers, overpaid hearing officers, spiraling legal fees and travel expenses to attend far-away conferences in NYC, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and perhaps a Caribbean cruise.”
Aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves, don’t you need to provide some evidence that this has happened? To me your just trying to grasp at any argument you can to discredit system that hasn’t even started yet, and not even been invited to any “conferences”. You also said:
“I suspect landlords in Mt. View would willingly pay $155+/unit per year to help the less fortunate in the community.”
$155 per year will only be about $13.00 a month. What kind of assistance is that when the ,y rent for example was risen $900. A mont simply because my NEW landlord expected ME to pay for his poor decision to buy my preprty at more than 4 times its value. Such nonsense. You said:
“Many already do with below market rents they’re now locked into.”
Before you go on any further, you are going to have to provide a detailed list of which apartments were being rented below market rate, and provide what percentage of the total apartments in this situation are renting “AT MARKET RATE”. Again making claims without any facts to back it up. You said:
“Rent control solves nothing, creates more challenges than it resolves and ultimately lines the pockets of people who don’t even need rent stabilization.”
Until you can prove that the free market provided adequate housing, and did not set itself up for the current housing crisis, what justification do you have in making this claim? You said:
“Fire away BusinessMan. Further fill this comment thread with your whirligig bobbin of unwelcome and pleonastic remarks.”
I love the fact that other resort to personal attacks rather than answer my counter-points. Until you are willing to come clean and REPRESENT YOURSELF and not use a fictional identity, your arguments become a lot weaker. Everyone knows who I am, Steven Goldstein. Who are you? Are landlords afraid that if the public knew who they are, they might find their public comments justification to post negative reviews in “social networks”, and at the same time, their tenants move out? Are they afraid they may poison their ability to do business by being transparent?
In response to Bob you said:
“How do you know this? Is this inflated rental market (Mountain View) over inflated compared to other rental markets in the bay area, California or the U.S..?”
If you read Fortune magazine the article (http://fortune.com/2016/01/11/real-estate-bubble/) it says:
In other words, it doesn’t look like irresponsible mortgage lending is inflating real estate prices beyond their fundamentals, but that doesn’t mean another form of capital won’t. That’s what housing analyst Marc Hanson has been arguing for some time now. Housing prices, he contends, are about 25% to 60% above what the fundamentals of the U.S. economy can justify, but the market is being propped up by “unorthodox. . .incremental demand using unorthodox capital.”…
The counterargument to this sort of analysis is that rent prices are so high across the country, justifying the high prices landlords are paying for single-family homes. “WELL, THAT’S OF COURSE, UNLESS, RENTS ARE IN A BUBBLE TOO,” writes Hanson. “I BELIEVE THEY ARE. IT’S OBVIOUS IN MAJOR METROS. BUT, LOOK AT PHOENIX, FOR EXAMPLE, WHERE OVER 50% OF HOUSEHOLDS CAN’T AFFORD THE AVERAGE RENT ON A TWO-BEDROOM APARTMENT.”
Also:
“Bubble Forming In San Francisco, Los Angeles Housing Markets
The San Francisco and Los Angeles housing markets are inching closer to bubble status. San Francisco is the most overvalued urban housing market in the U.S., according to UBS Wealth Management’s annual Global Real Estate Bubble Index. Los Angeles is the second most overvalued city.
San Francisco real housing prices increased 65% since 2012 following the tech boom and foreign demand. While pricing has slowed in recent quarters, it is still 6% above the national average. Average incomes rose only 10% since 2012 and have not kept pace with housing prices, causing affordability issues, according to UBS.”( https://www.bisnow.com/san-francisco/news/multifamily/san-francisco-los-angeles-most-overvalued-us-housing-markets-79713)
So now you need to demonstrate that there is NO BUBBLE in the apartments in California. Please demonstrate that to us? You also said:
“seems to me that real estate everywhere in our country has been inflating along with rents so where do you get your reference point from to determine what’s over inflated??
Our markets are determined by what one will sell at and one will buy at, simple.
So, if you believe Mountain View is over inflated… It will take care of itself without intervention with a market correction to get in line with competition.”
As you know that the real estate market thereby the apartment market is efficient, it is corrupted by the same forces that created the Housing Bubble of 2007. That in fact only when the economic system starts to collapse will these markets be required to become efficient? Alan Greenspan famously demonstrated that his “market efficiency” faith had a flaw where the market works to inflate values without substantive real value behind it. He said:
“A long-time cheerleader for deregulation, Greenspan admitted to a congressional committee yesterday that he had been “partially wrong” in his hands-off approach towards the banking industry and that the credit crunch had left him in a state of shocked disbelief. “I have found a flaw,” said Greenspan, referring to his economic philosophy. “I DON’T KNOW HOW SIGNIFICANT OR PERMANENT IT IS. BUT I HAVE BEEN VERY DISTRESSED BY THAT FACT.”
And:
“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks AND OTHERS, WERE SUCH THAT THEY WERE BEST CAPABLE OF PROTECTING THEIR OWN SHAREHOLDERS and their equity in the firms,” said Greenspan.”( https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/oct/24/economics-creditcrunch-federal-reserve-greenspan)
As the saying goes, those not willing to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The Real Estate business never cares about the soundness of how much above the market it sells properties, especially in California. So they sell properties at the highest prices never considering the impact on the buyer. Remember “Caveat emptor”, if one buys a property that turnsd out to be less valuable thzan the price they bought it, they eat the difference. You also said:
“Also, you state, “You do know that the VOTERS are a capitalist MARKET FORCE”
If this was true, they would save their own money and buy their own housing. Right?
And then they would buy another one to rent out and make profits on and so on. Right?
So, I don’t understand the premise of your argument that the voters are capitalists? “
You continue to ignore the Porters model of Market forces found here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter%27s_five_forces_analysis#Bargaining_power_of_customers). It states:
“Bargaining power of customers
The bargaining power of customers is also described as the market of outputs: THE ABILITY OF CUSTOMERS TO PUT THE FIRM UNDER PRESSURE, which also affects the customer’s sensitivity to price changes…. “
This is in fact what occurred in Mountain View, and in fact if Costa Hawkins is repealed by ballot measure, it will expand current rent controls to all apartments in Mountain View and other cities, and encourage citizens to work together in the same way it did here in Mountain View, you also said:
“What we have here was a mob that wanted to redistribute or people’s wealth, get together and vote it in. They have the majority because of the percentage of renters. I don’t believe that is capitalism or these people are capitalists. Maybe they want to believe they are but they only wanted something for themselves and overlooked being a capitalist for entitlements. A capitalist doesn’t pick and choose when to be a capitalist and when to vote for entitlements. Give me a break!!”
This situation can apply to any market at any time. You cannot claim that you are being singled out regarding the citizens establishing a city-wide collective bargaining unit to correct for the unbalanced power of the landlords that has been occurring in the city. You are just significantly aggravated because they succeeded. You also said:
“You also stated, “Thus is the MARKET demands this kind of regulation, it is not a SOCIALIST GOVERNMENTAL ACT. IT IS SIMPLY THE MARKET FORCING THE UPON ITSELF AN INCOME CONTROL.”
So, you believe this is still a free market but it needs regulation? There is no such thing as a regulated free market. There are markets that are regulated by government. That’s what the Rental Housing Committee is; a governing body that was set up by the city council which is government run. Nice try Business man!”
You do realize that there is NO SUCH THING AS A FREE MARKET. If you read the following:
WE NEVER FACE A CHOICE BETWEEN REGULATION AND NO REGULATION. We face a choice between kinds of regulation: regulation by legislatures and bureaucracies, or regulation by market forces — regulation by restriction of choice, or regulation by the exercise of choice. There is no such thing as an unregulated free market. If a market is free, it is closely regulated by the free choices of market participants. The actions of each constrain and influence the actions of others in ways that make actions regular — more or less predictable, falling within understandable bounds.
GOVERNMENT REGULATION IS NOT THE ONLY KIND OF REGULATION; MARKET FORCES ALSO REGULATE. RECOGNIZING THIS, COMMUNICATING IT TO OTHERS, AND GETTING THE AWARENESS INTO PUBLIC DISCOURSE ARE KEY STEPS TOWARD GREATER ECONOMIC LIBERTY. The benefit of this semantic change — opening up the meaning of “regulation” to include regulation by market forces — IS TO RAISE THE QUESTION, WHICH WORKS BETTER? REGULATION BY MARKET FORCES WORKS BETTER, BUT THAT’S ANOTHER ARGUMENT. The first step is to recognize that market forces regulate, too.
SO WE HAVE A PARADOX: THE LESS A MARKET IS REGULATED — NO, THAT’S NOT THE RIGHT WORD; THE LESS A MARKET IS RESTRICTED — BY GOVERNMENT, THE MORE IT IS REGULATED BY MARKET FORCES. CONVERSELY, THE MORE GOVERNMENT RESTRICTION, THE LESS REGULATION BY MARKET FORCES. THERE IS A DIRECT TRADE-OFF BETWEEN THE TWO.”(http://www.aei.org/publication/government-regulation-vs-regulation-market-forces-consumer-regulators/)
So your premise of “Free market” simply is false. I would suggest you get some education regarding how the market works.
In response to Bay-wide You said:
“I find it interesting that you call out others for not responding when you clearly could not and would not respond to my post on the other thread about what is actually and truly happening with properties in cities facing rent control votes. ”
Here is one example of a direct response:
In response to Bay-wide you said:
”I recently went to work for a property management company and here is something I am seeing on a weekly/monthly basis. In cities not yet under rent control, long term owners, “mom and pops” who have been minimally increasing rates are asking me to raise rents quickly to get them to current market rates, in some cases giving tenants 60 days to vacate or be willing to pay big increases.”
So the first observation is that you are speaking BECAUSE IT IS YOUR BUSINESS TO RAISE RENTS AND FORCE PEOPLE OUT OF THEIR APARTMENTS, IS THIS CORRECT? Second, if the rents are raised simply for raising them sake, then this seems to contradict your claim that “mom and pops” are in fact being reasonable regarding their rent polices. You wen on to say:
“They don’t want to do it, they are those owners who have “big hearts” and try to help tenants but they are seeing what happened in MV and what’s being discussed in Pacifica, Redwood City etc and they’re afraid they’re going to get stuck with strict controls that will bind them and potentially cause them economic hardship.”
That is not a valid explanation at all. IF they truly have “BIG HEARTS” they would not attempt to raise rents simply because another neighborhood chose to implement rent control. It has nothing to do with them until their properties are in fact getting under the regulations of rent. And in fact, by raising the rents the way you describe simply almost guarantees that the people in that city will work to implement rent control and even worse require a “rent-rollback”. This action seems to be very poorly thought out. You also said:
“Again, these are those really good landlords, the ones who care about their tenants and have given minimal increases over the years.”
First, I cannot simply take your word for it. I need this to be demonstrated by disclosing who these people are, what the properties your talking about, what the amenities are to use in comparison to others, and the rents being paid in comparison to those with the same kind of apartments. This is a notorious, yet unsubstantiated claim made by the CAA repetitively. It seems that we have a CAA representative remaking the same arguments it made during the Measure V campaign. You go on to say:
“These affordable units are being pulled off the market ALL ACROSS THE BAY by owners who don’t want to get left holding the bag for a failed rent control policy.”
You are arguing a conclusion that has not yet been proven, instead your just grasping at any excuse to justify a “cash-out” scheme. But it is true as of now that you can “cash-out” at any time due to the Ellis Act. You go on to say:
“I place the blame firmly on the shoulders of the proponents of rent control and the false ideology the Stanford law group represents.”
I think what you’re really saying is that with the likelihood of Costa Hawkins being repealed by ballot initiative, and the success of ballot measures putting more responsibilities regarding the justifications for raising rent, your economic interest is threatened. So be it. The reality is this is avoidable by CHOOSING NOT TO TAKE ACTIONS AS DESCRIBED ABOVE, you’re just pushing the communities to take the actions you want to prevent.”(https://www.mv-voice.com/square/2017/11/02/landlords-balk-at-rental-fees)
I admit I did not respond to one comment in that story, but it was getting stale and newer information was needed to be shared. So you cannot claim I completely disregard your points. I will be happy to address them but they will not be posted here. Youn went on to say:
“And as a side note, it appears people in Pacifica have much more common sense and are more educated about the long term effects of rent control. It was soundly defeated last week.”
That is correct, the measure did not pass but if you look at the fact that a significantly small portion of voters actually voted, only 8,593 votes votes out of 39,062 population.
Assuming that 50% of those could vote, there are 19,000 voters.
Less than half of those who could vote did vote only 8,593 based on the results.
Can you in fact claim that the entire City actually rejected that measure, given this information, you cannot. But the fact is the ones who DID vote rejected it.
As always it is not whether the City rejected or approved, it is who managed to get the voters to vote, that is the current American way.
In response to Bay-wide from Landlords balk at rental fees, you said:
“@TBM, my job is to help my tenants find the best home within their budget and their means while balancing the investment of my owners. “
So do you in fact find other places for those you price out of your apartment? What records do you have of success in doing this? Do you expect me to take you at your word when you use a fake name. My name is Steven Goldstein, what’s yours? You said:
“You state” if the rents are raised simply for raising them sake”…that is not what I stated. The rents are being raised TO MARKET VALUE due to owner concerns that rent control will come in and lock them down below market rate. “
What measure are you using to establish “Market Rate”? It simply doesn’t matter if you claim a rent is below market rate unless for example you document the HUD Fair Market Rent of your apartment and then disclose the rent being charged. To me, this simply is not a sufficient explanation of your business practice until you disclose the information I just suggested. You went on to say:
“I am not a CAA agent. I am not “grasping” at anything.I am speaking truths, I am just telling you what I experience on an ever-more consistent basis. I am not going to give you specifics because it’s frankly none of your business…”
If your going to discuss things in a public forum, you must back up your discussion with disclosure of relevant information. Withoput it, how can one grant you proper consideration? You can understand my skepticism. You went on to say:
“ but I will share with you that we had an owner in another city with a 4-unit complex, tenants paying $1550 then in July owner requested that we increase to $1770 and now owner asking us to increase again.”
Until I can see “WHERE” this complex is, and find out the HUD FMR, I cannot tell if you are alreaedy getting a Fair Market Rent in that complex. You are not providing enough information to the public for your consideration. You went on to say:
“We let owner know that this isn’t good business, while we realize the units were not near market value it’s bad business to continually increase rates on tenants. We are no longer managing the property.”
However, you are not disclosing how you stopped working that property, were you in fact FIRED or TERMINATED because of this issue, or some other issue. How am I supposed to know? If you were willing to provide enough information for me to learn that your conduct was in fact “ethical” but “penalized” I would be the first to support you. You went on to say:
“ It’s my understanding that owner is going to give all tenants notice that rent will be increased to $2200 and they have 60 days to either agree or vacate. The very idea of rent control is pushing owners to raise rent! “
The idea is not sufficient enough to justify abuse of customers that do nothing to deserve such treatment. You must really know this. You go on to say:
“Again, this is a small “mom and pop”, the owner has for years been underpriced, using emotion rather than good business sense. The owner is elderly, the child is stepping in and realizing how low rates are and understandably wants to be at market rate as rent control is being discussed and is a concern. “
Again, I simply do not have enough information to determine the validity of that situation. Until I do, I simply cannot just “take your word for it”. You go on to say:
“Rent control is like death to communities. It locks in a very few lucky people and drives up rents on the rest. Just look at San Francisco that has had rent control for years. It’s the highest rental cost in the Bay. Guess what city that enacted rent control last year now is the #2 most expensive for rents in the Bay? Yes. Mountain View.”
Given it can be proven that the rent controlled units in San Francisco and Mountain View are a significant minority of the total apartments, I have a hard time agreeing with you. What you have is the market using anti-competitive collaboration to provide more expensive apartments and less of them to inflate the cost of living in California in general.
What I find difficult to understand is there are no records indicating the total number of apartments in San Francisco, and also the total counted as rent controlled. My suspicion is that the apartment industry refuses to construct such data because it will prove that the total rent controlled versus the total apartments is a very small minority of them.
The same will occur here in Mountain View. The only statistic that I heard was there are 16,000 that are covered by CSFRA. But what is the total amount of apartments in Mountain View? Given that there has been 20+ years to build, and you can easily observe many new apartments, this number should dwarf the older ones. The simple fact is rent control only impacts a minority of apartments, but you do not want to discuss this fact.
If it is true that as few as 10-20% of the apartments are old enough for rent control. The why claim that rent control forces the rest of the market to be higher in price? The only excuse is that the apartment owners abuse the market to make up for poor management. The only way to prove otherwise is to disclose the business practices and allow a disinterested party to analyze it. If you say it is not anyone’s business, then we cannot simply “take your word for it”. Sorry.
In response to Bob you said:
“I’m not sure of why you doubt me but if you have something to add of substance go ahead.”
It appears I do so, but you never seem to acknowledge my counter-points, you only chose to evaluate me personally. You also said:
“I was answering a question posted with real time answers to someone that has a real time business question regarding the effects of rent control on other communities.”
However, you simply repeat the same thing, never addressing any counter-points. You go on to say:
“If you want my identity forget it. I don’t ask for yours and doubt you because you won’t give me your parcel # or name?”
HEY, MY NAME IS STEVEN GOLDSTEIN AND I LIVE AT 184 CENTRE STREET. So there, I have stepped up, how about you? You said:
“Is this another fake news tactic of the lefties?”
One can also claim that your point of view is based on what can be described as “alt-right” political propaganda. I do not question if it is real or not. But what I do is point out some counter-points with some research to back it up.
You have the right to express yourself. And I will address your messages, but you make it difficult to grant you much regarding weight. Anyone can look me up on things like Monster and so on, thus seeing my background and what kind of work I have done. But you refuse to provide the same.
In response to MVWoman you said:
“”Shame”- at first you had something of substance to say, but now you’re just badgering another poster, and it’s ridiculous to read. You sound – even if that is not your intent – immature and jealous of the poster “Bob”. “
You target a person for personal attacks, yet do not actually contribute any real information on the subject? To me, this is like the pot calling the grass green. You go on to say:
“The rental control Board should have representatives of all opinions, so it can at least LOOK democratic. I don’t want a pack of “yes men” that just vote to give anything asked. I don’t know anyone on the Board, but I believe a variety of opinions are vital to fairly represent all residents in the City.”
I do not argue with the primary premise that all opinions should be considered. But there is a difference when the “board” in itself can be considered a a “rigged” organization. Unfortunately we are stuck with what we have at this time. You go on to say:
“I was hoping to see facts here – but they are few and far between.”
Of course anything you do not agree with is “NOT” a fact. So that means your off hand disregards any counter-point expressed. You know this is true. You go on to say:
“All I see is that this rent control is going to cost we taxpayers of Mountain View a massive bundle.”
Actually, NO. The City Council will not provide any funds from the general funds. That is their right to do. I never encouraged the use of Homeowners, businesses and other taxes to fund this program. Let the landlords pay the cost, let it remain separated from the general funds. LET THE LANDLORDS PAY THE WHOLE COST AND PETITION THE BOARD FOR RENT INCREASES. You go on to say:
“I’d much rather use this money to subsidize down payments for teachers, fire, and police so they could afford to live in the city in which they work. This has spun out of control.”
I am in total agreement. PLEASE LETS DO AS SHE SUGGESTS?
WARNING LONG BUT ADDRESSING BOBS COMMENTS POINT BY POINT
In response to Bob you said:
“Your right. Anyone that thinks that you can spend $2.5 million a year on people to solve a housing shortage that do nothing more than try to manage the shortage of housing is fooling themselves. Their not creating anything or offering any product to the community. Their passing paperwork around and that is all you’re going to get.”
You are WRONG. The CSFRA was established to require public scrutiny to prevent price gouging for the current tenants of the older properties. Nothing more. It is the apartment industry that needs to solve the bigger problem, since they will reap the rewards of the return on investments. You went on to say:
“What’s crazy is that the voters got schmuked into voting for this fantasy with expectations that if you have a Rental Housing Committee and rent control somehow all this new housing would appear and everyone would live happily ever after.”
Again you are WRONG. The apartment industry is solely responsible for solving the current problem, you went on to say:
“It’s just the opposite because you have more money exiting affordable housing now than placement of money entering into it in Mountain View. What happened is you ran all the investors off Mountain View! That private money is what feeds your housing stock?”
Again you are WRONG. Any new apartments at least at this time are NOT subject to the CSFRA. Thoser projects will be able to rent at current market rates. You love to present what is an illogical statement that doesn’t relate to the current situation. You went on to say:
“This will continue until one day there will be a museum featuring a 4 plex of affordable housing down by the computer museum. You will be able to show your children what it looked like then.”
This is just merely a statement designed to exacerbate the situation in Mountain View by one who doesn’t even live here. You went on to say:
“Are you suggesting that I should work for nothing?”
The CSFRA impacts a minority of the apartments in Mountain View, if your properties are newer than 1995, than you have nothing to discuss in that argument. If they are older, you can make as much money you want as long as you petition the CSFRA and provide proof that you are not in fact “price-gouging” your tenants. The CSFRA in that respect does not impair your right to earnings. You went on to say:
“I needed profits for my business to continue in your community. I moved my money outa there and am already into San Ramon where the schools are superb and the asian population is moving to. “
You know they love American education and I want to be there to greet them when they get here with their suitcases of money.”
Sao you’re in fact targeting a minority because you can figure you can manipulate that market. I know that the so called “Asian” customers are not likely to assert their rights, especially if they are in fact not necessarily citizens, but are either H1 type or Student visas. This is just another approach of customer exploitation. You went on to say:
“Do you work for free and donate all your money to charity?”
This is just merely a statement designed to exacerbate the situation in Mountain View by one who doesn’t even live here. You went on to say:
“I have a big problem.
I have to buy 14 houses at around 950k each in the next 90 days to conform in my 1031 exchange so I don’t pay taxes to our government.”
NO YOU DON’T HAVE TO BUY OR DO ANYTHING. YOU CHOOSE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR INVESTMENT PLAN TO SHORT CHANGE THE GOVERNMENT. You went on to say:
“You thought you life is hard? I have to reinvest all my Mountain View property money.”
To me, what problem is that? If in fact you are this wealthy, it is not a burden, but in fact a game. This is just merely a statement designed to exacerbate the situation in Mountain View by one who doesn’t even live here. You went on to say:
“Your right this has been going on for months but this is how these deals are.
Some of the property is tied to other deals by developers and some is even out of state that must close escrow prior to properties in Mountain View.
I have 1 deal that the adjacent property owner must close escrow first before I can because of a family trust issue that removes contingencies on another family property being sold under a S corp. in Indiana.
Then I have a commercial property being sold in a partnership in Springfield Illinois which is in a LLC which is being bought by corporate Tractor Supply and resold to a new investor. That deal is worth 3.8 million to me.
The list goes on and on.”
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS, THAT’S ALL. You choose to be in this business you are not doing it under duress. IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE IN THIS BUSINESS THEN SIMPLY GET OUT COMPLETELY. You went on to say:
“Your facts are incorrect but that’s what liberals do.
I have been in contract since September on my first offerings.
I have several properties that are selling.”
As I demonstrated earlier, as far as any counter-point is concerned with you, there are NO FACTS that apply to you. That is your right to choose to accept. BUT THE PUBLIC HAS THE RIGHT TO REFUSE YOUR CHOSEN POINT OF VIEW AS WELL. You cannot subject others to existing in the world you perceive. That is simply not rational.
In response to George Drysdale you said:
“The San Jose Property Rights Initiative. Google’s major contribution to society is the cleaning up of the largest investment market in the world: the American housing market. Because of he disclosure Google provides it is destroying rent control first in Mountain View and then throughout California.”
MY first question is, where has Google ever published any intent to do what you just described? Until you can get an official statement that Google intends to act the way you described, you are just writing fiction. You also said:
“This is not forty years ago when rent control became the fad in California.”
In fact 95% of the market has no rent control at this time, and yet there is a severe shortage of affordable housing in California. You cannot be seriously trying to argue rent control is casing this problem. I do not claim it will solve the problem. That is a problem for the “apartment industry” to solve, not the government and surely not the tenants. What rent control does is prevents “price-gouging” by forcing landlords to publically disclose their economic health to substantiate any basis of a rent increase. But realize that under the CSFRA, that is an entitled due process. You go on to say:
“Where were the “leaders” of the rent control movement when this all was discussed in high school economics?”
As it was well documented in the Sony Picture Classics “Inside Job” documentary, the private interests “USE” the academic study of economics as a political mechanism to prevent any other points of view from being discussed. This has been paid for by private interests, and it is only recently that the American Economist Associateion has REQUIRED disclosure of any potential CONFLICT OF INTERESTS.. You go on to say:
“It’s all over the internet about what happens when rent control go in. Welcome to 2017 “leaders.””
It is also equally all over the internate how where there is prohibited rent control, the most severe shortages of available housing are also present. It would appear that the “rent control” argument that the industry establishes a demand/supply balance most efficiently without regulations cannot be true. However, this is a counter-point you will simply ignore or refuse to accept as a premise as a whole. As far as the THE SAN JOSE PROPERTY RIGHTS INITIATIVE(http://sanjose.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?meta_id=647694):
“Rent control is tyranny and an attack on liberty. In order to graduate from high school you have to know rent controls are bad.”
That is simply not correct, UNLESS YOU FORCE THE STUDENTS TO CONFORM TO YOUR POLITICAL POINT OF VIEW. But, that would in fact be UNPROFESSIONAL CONDUCT ON BEHALF OF THE TEACHER. I would never want my child to be “BRAIN-CONDITIONED” TO ONLY ADOPT ONE POINT OF VIEW. Public education is NOT ALLOWED TO BE USED FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES.
“Economics is a required course in high school.”
Yes
“Rent controls are literally LIKE BOMBING A COMMUNITY FINANCIALLY AND MORALLY.”
So you are comparing rent control to CYBER TERRORISM? By the way CYBER-TERRORISM IS INTENDED TO INFLICT FINANCIAL AND MORAL HARM.
“Economics is an obsession in Silicon Valley along with the other sciences. ALL ECONOMISTS AND SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHER ARE AGAINST RENT CONTROLS.”
This statement needs proof; you have to demonstrate that 100% OF ECONOMISTS AND SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHERS ARE IN AGREEMENT WITH YOU. Without such proof, this statement is questionable.
“Rent control on mobile home parks are already an enormous scandal, on the internet: The catastrophe IN CAPITOLA AND THE GREAT SANTA CRUZ LAND SWINDLE.”
The Capitola case simply was settled, there was no determination that LAND WAS TAKEN BY THE CITY OF CAPITOLA. So this statement is misleading at the very least. IN FACT THE SETTLEMENT DID NOT REMOVE RENT CONTROL BUT MERELY ESTABLISHED THAT VACANCY CAN DECONTROL A MOBILE HOME LAND LOT.
“One way or another San Jose will end up part of the number one lesson plan in basic economics. San Jose suffers hundreds of millions of dollars in financial damage a year because of rent controls.”
If that were the case and it was illegal or unconstitutional, than why not sue the City for the losses. The fact is that the landlords cannot establish what “damages” they suffered because they probably do not run their businesses well enough to establish the only cause of such losses was rent control. That is necessary to state a claim under this scenario.
“The initiative: Boot rent control out lock stock and barrel as fast as possible. If the San Jose city council throws rent controls out it will become heroes otherwise you will be regarded as cynics. Right now in Mountain View rent control has become a fiasco. 44 STATES HAVE OUTLAWED RENT CONTROLS.”
As I have posted before, 44 states do not outlaw rent control. This is a misrepresentation, I have demonstrated that only 15 states specifically outlaw rent control, and there are as many as 13 others with other regulatory mechanisms.
“There would be no shortage of housing if all the mobile home parks were converted into much needed apartments rather than allowing the swindle of having mobile home owners selling their trailers for many times their value because of price fixed rents and an unawareness of politicians. I will go further into this as the initiator just explain things to the city council as I did in Capitola.”
I would like some proof that there would be no shortages of housing because there is no rent control. The fact that Costa Hawkins forbids it in the state, and yet the state has a severe housing shortage crisis. Your claim simply is disproven by reality.
“The numbers. Added to this the initiative will be funded by probably the heaviest financing in state history, if not the history of the U.S. Rent control has been thrown out thousands of times. “
Since when does money spent on a campaign equate to what is reality. So much in politics is based not on reality, but what policies you want to benefit your group. This is the reality of government in the US.
“San Jose CA. is not San Jose Venezuela. Mexico City dumped rent controls. Time is of the essence. Your political careers are a stake.”
Does that sound like a threat to you?
“George Drysdale initiator and educator”
After what I just read, I do not agree you are an educator, because good educators do not dictate the thoughts of their students. They allow their students to do independent thinking. But as you said above, you do not allow that to happen.
George Drysdale, you are very smart to not identify yourself. Because if you are acting as your initiative letter stated which stated:
“Rent control is tyranny and an attack on liberty. In order to graduate from high school you have to know rent controls are bad.”
Then you are in effect violating the code of conduct regarding political advocacy in your classroom. You are in fact prohibited from advocating any public policy in your class. Also if you do discuss any topic, you will have to demonstrate that your approach equally discusses and holds no bias for one position over another given what was written titled “Boards, teachers must be careful to toe the line on advocacy” by John Fensterwald on the website (https://edsource.org/2012/boards-teachers-must-be-careful-to-toe-the-line-on-advocacy/22179) it states:
“Can a teacher discuss an initiative or local ballot items in class? YES, as long as it’s an objective presentation WITH SUPPORTERS’ AND OPPONENTS’ POSITIONS PRESENTED. The younger the students, the more questionable it becomes, however, Fagen said. “A second grader may go home to tell parents, ‘My teacher said that if you don’t vote yes, school budgets will be cut and there will be layoffs.’ Can students tell both sides?””( https://edsource.org/2012/boards-teachers-must-be-careful-to-toe-the-line-on-advocacy/22179)
This article also states:
“One compelling reason for educational institutions to be aware of where to draw the line between education and advocacy is the threat of lawsuits. JON COUPAL, PRESIDENT OF THE HOWARD JARVIS TAXPAYERS ASSOCIATION, SAID MONDAY THAT HE HAS BEEN GETTING ABOUT 12 COMPLAINTS A DAY ABOUT ALLEGED VIOLATIONS OF PROHIBITIONS ON ADVOCACY ON BEHALF OF LOCAL AND STATE BALLOT QUESTIONS AND THAT HIS ASSOCIATION INTENDS TO FLLE ADDITIONAL LAWSUITS. Complaints have included posting of a “Yes on Prop 30/No on Prop 32” sign in an elementary school in Santa Ana and sending home a flier supporting Prop 30 in another elementary school in Southern California.
“To us, this is systemic,” said Coupal, “and cannot continue. I would hope, after all this is done, that we can reach accommodations on penalties. There need to be bright-line tests.””( https://edsource.org/2012/boards-teachers-must-be-careful-to-toe-the-line-on-advocacy/22179)
So it would appear that you are risking a significant legal problem for whatever school you teach in. However, I cannot find any school that employs a “George Drysdale” in California. You are wise to not disclose your real name, because I would then be encouraged to ask your employer whether you are in compliance with the legal conduct restrictions in your classroom or class material.
In any case, this kind of behavior does put your ethical integrity into reasonable question by the public.
@ The Business Man: Your comments are waaaaaaaay to long, so I, along with many others, skip right over them. Get a clue.
In response to Waldo you said:
“@ The Business Man: Your comments are waaaaaaaay to long, so I, along with many others, skip right over them. Get a clue.”
Where are you, I can’t find Waldo.
If I just typed what I wanted to, without expressing proof of my ideas, the critics here would just claim I am writing FICTION.
Of course, I demonstrate that many here are writing FICTION.
All I ask is to be patient and read, that is all.
Thank everyone in advance
By the way, the PBS video was pretty good, but they did not ask any current City Council memebers.
Did the City Council refuse to discuss the subject? Hmmm.
Google loves to claim they are in effect solving the affordable housing problem. In fact they are being forced to do so now that AB 1505 is the law. It is not by choice, it is required from them.
Political spinning going haywire.
Something very important just came to me. If in fact the new Guidelines from American Economist Association Guidelines from (https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/policies/disclosure-policy) You can look up the page, since I have been criticized for being TOO LONG.
This would mean that if this disclosure is NOT PROVIDED, said RESEARCH IS IN EFFECT DISQUALIFIED as upholding the scientific integrity. This also would apply to any report USING PREVIOUS ECONOMIC RESEARCH, FORMULAS, OR ALGORITHMS THAT ALSO DID NOT PROVIDE SAID DISCLOSURE. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
IT MEANS ALL PRIOR RESEARCH LACKIG DISCLOSURE IS RENDERED VOID.
This applies to any economics studies OF ANY KIND REGARDING ANY THEORY.
IN EFFECT THE SCIENCE OF ECONOMICS HAS TO RESET AND START WITH TOTALLY NEW RESEARCH THAT IS IN COMPLIANCE WITH SAID GUIDELINS. THE SCIENCE CANNOT AWARD ANY CONSIDERATION REGARDING PAST WORKS THAT ARE NOT IN COMPLIANCE WITH THESE GUIDLIEMS BECAUSE THE RESULTS NO MATTER WHAT THEY ARE, ARE NOW RENDERRED TO HAVE NO ACADEMIC VALUE.
IN EFFECT ALL STUDIES DONE LACKING THIS DISCLOSURE ALSO MUST NOT BE CONSIDERED REGARDING AND PUBLIC POLICY CONSIDERATIONS.
THIS MEANS THERE MAY NOT BE ANY ECONOMIST AT THIS TIME THAT CAN ARGUE EITHER WAY. THE PUBLIC POLICY IS SOLELY DEPENDENT ON IF ONE IS ENCOURAGED BY OTHER INFLUENCES THAT CAN DETERMINE THE POLICY (I.E. CITIZENS UNITED).
This is going to throw the economics science into a void. TOO BAD.
Something very important just came to me. If in fact the new Guidelines from American Economist Association Guidelines from (https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/policies/disclosure-policy) You can look up the page, since I have been criticized for being TOO LONG
This would mean that if this disclosure is not provided, said research is in effect DISQUALIFIED as upholding the scientific integrity. This also would APPLY to any report using previously performed economic RESEARCH, FORMULAS, OR ALGORITHMS that also did not provide said DISCLOSURE. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
IT MEANS ALL PRIOR RESEARCH LACKING DISCLOSURE IS RENDERED VOID.
This applies to any economics studies OF ANY KIND REGARDING ANY THEORY.
In effect the science of economics has to RESET and start with TOTALLY NEW RESEARCH that is in compliance with said DISCLOSURE guidelines. The science cannot award any consideration regarding past works that are not in compliance with these guidelines because the results no matter what they are, are now rendered to have no academic value.
In effect all studies done lacking this DISCLOSURE also must not be considered regarding and public policy considerations.
This means there may not be any ECONOMIST at this time that can argue either way. The public policy is solely dependent on if one is encouraged BY OTHER INFLUENCES that can determine the policy (i.e. citizens united).
This is going to throw the economics science into a void. TOO BAD.
“So engineers are already transferring out because of housing costs, and yet it’s still incredibly expensive to live here. Sounds like an imperfect solution compared to just building higher density housing. ”
@YIMBY, keep in mind that there are multiple factors driving housing costs. Demand from newcomers is a major one, but perhaps even more impactful is real estate speculation from wealthy foreign speculators who don’t necessarily even live here. Their demand for a safe yet lucrative place to park their wealth is almost insatiable, so the more we build, the more they buy up. We regular folks who simply need a place to live can’t win unless the system is changed.
(note: I am the same “Mel” as before, but now it makes you login and that screen name was already taken.)
Re: “Google opens offices where engineers want to work.”
I haven’t worked at Google for more than 7 years, and I wasn’t involved in any decisions related to office locations then. But my “not quite an outsider” impression was that Google opened offices where there were already a lot of engineers.
Data centers would be built in remote locations (mainly motivated by cheap power), and the employees would travel to them. But office locations were built where the employees already lived/worked.
Re: “If there were a bunch of engineers clamoring to move to rural Michigan, there’d be a Google office there.”
Actually, I think it’s more a case that if there were a bunch of engineers already living and working in rural Michigan, then Google and other tech companies might open offices there, expanding the existing “Silicon Yooperville”.
But it is something of a chicken-and-egg problem.
“But my “not quite an outsider” impression was that Google opened offices where there were already a lot of engineers.”
That would be logical, @Daren, but we’ve seen that they bring in even more than are already there. It’s that monumental influx that has created the traffic gridlock and is a major contributor to the skyrocketing cost of housing.
I hope RV’s, parked on our city streets and some of them rented by our lovely citizens, are included in this control that does nothing to help the immediate ‘homeless’ situation. Any Mountain View citizen who rents their campers – to be parked on our city streets – needs some sort of control. They obviously don’t care about the people living in the places they park their campers.