Comment by superfrank
18 hours ago
> In theory landlords would be looking to petition for eviction but that's usually not what happens.
For a small time landlord, a good tenant is worth their weight in gold. It's not worth chasing out a reliable tenant you have a good history with just to try to squeeze a few extra bucks out of the property.
I don't think you appreciate the scale of the discount on market rates. If you've lived somewhere for 30+ years, you might be paying $400/month for something that would now be $8000/month.
In NYC, they stopped giving out rent control leases in 1971. What you see advertised now are rent-stabilized (which is what rent-controlled apartments became once vacated). Those are two entirely different things however. But, rent control apartments can be inherited by someone who had been living in the apartment. Naturally, landlords become desperate to stop this happening because, if it does, they're facing possibly another 50+ years of having to rent out a 3 bedroom apartment overlooking Central Park for $600/month (actual example).
Now I don't like rent control as a long-term solution because it's this very American model of pushing what is intended to be a social safety net onto private individuals. I don't care about the landlords. I care about the tenants. With this system you have constant fights where landlords don't do repairs, won't turn the heat on when it's cold (even when legally obligated to do so), will make it unpleasant to live in (eg by doing excessive construction), etc to essentially force tenants out.
Instead we should have the government own and supply below-market rents for people who need it. Nurses, teachers, firefighters, etc. Anyone can get a rent-stabilized apartment now no matter how rich. The only real requirement is you need to be resident in the city, which means 6 months and a day per year. Back when Boston still had rent-control, the mayor had one.
Also, we need to stop letting people hoard property like this.
I used to live in NYC. My apartment was exactly $2k. The previous tenant at the time paid $600/month (they have to tell you this). The owners used a loophole at the time to break it out of rent-stabilization (by doing exactly enough improvements to take the rent to $2000/month at a 40-to-1 ratio IIRC). I think it now rents for $5000/month.
Houses should be for living in, not for parasitic speculation.
I have a friend that got a rent-controlled apartment, circa 2004, exactly one block from Dolores Park (SFbay hotspot). His rent remains under $2000 for a 3/1 apartment (he illegally sublets the other two for much more than this).
>Instead we should have the government own and supply below-market rents for people who need it.
Similar to a few school districts which have built teacher housing complexes; or like a few CostCo locations which have attached apartments, subsidized for employees.
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My current living situation is as part-time property manager for a few slummier duplexes, on a street of two-dozen identical structures (only three separate humans own the entire street). Just a few years ago there were twice as many owners; happy to see rents cooling off after their overinvestment into an already-functional neighborhood.