rent control hurts renters.
Also, war is peace.
ignorance is strength
freedom is slavery

my hair is fucking gorgeous, thank you.

but i see what you're saying.

I'm on rent control and you have never seen such an overpriced dump. I'm getting a break? Far from it. Rent control only helps people who've lived in their apartments for eons. Quite frankly, I'd like to see exactly what percentage of renters fall into that category.

Incidentally, when Boston abolished rent control, rents doubled and tripled everywhere in the city.

Anyone who thinks abolishing rent control will magically decrease rents in a market where demand far, FAR outstrips supply, is smoking something I want to get ahold of.

I have to say: if I was a landlord, and I knew that I was only allowed to raise the rent by a small amount each year, I would start each lease at the highest possible rate I could possibly charge.

Design is chaos

I'm not that bright when it comes to economics (my credit card balance can prove that), but I love my rent controlled two bedroom (fireplace, W/D) for $1400. So it might be in the Outer Sunset with an ugly pink and green bathroom right on the N-Judah line but rents are insane these days.

Also, I checked zillow.com and my landlady bought my two flat building in the 1970's for ~$80K and pays only ~$1800 a year in property taxes so I don't think she's hurting for money when it comes to my place. I don't see how you could buy a comparable building now for a million, rent it out and not lose money. If she sold it and someone tried to rent it out to pay for the mortgage you'd have to charge ~$3000 to break even. Maybe that's why TICs are so popular.

On another rent control note, my friend has been in her place in the Upper Haight for about three plus years now and her landlord is being Super Bitch (cap and eye mask to match) trying to get her ass kicked out so Super Bitch can get some new tenants and double the rent. When the housing market is in the dumps it seems that rents do the opposite.

When I was living in San Rafael, each year I had to account for an increase of $150/month or so for my tiny studio apartment. Generally, this situation made me move once a year to progressively smaller/worse apartments and I never really got to participate in the community because of the frequent moves. While rents are pretty high here in the city, at least I'm reasonably sure I'll be able to stay in my apartment for more than 12 months. I don't know all the nuances of rent control, but I do know it provides some stability to my life. If rent control is abolished and rents jump significantly the face of the City will change quite a bit in short order. People who can't pay much more than they do now (like me) will either move away in droves or become more desperate and dangerous.

On the plus side, homeowners will get more money. Yay money!

And yes, I'm a bottomless pit of contradictions.

Jeez, what a waste of time that was. I started to give the idea some serious thought ... that rent control freezes up the market.

"Hmm, maybe there's something to that!" I pondered. "Maybe there are lot of circumstances where SF landlords wouldn't start each lease at the highest possible rate they could possibly charge!"

But then my mad critical thinking skillz kicked in, taking into account locale, vacancy rate, density, supply, demand, Boston-as-a-test-case, etc.

Even my deep-seated hatred of all things Chris Daly couldn't obscure how ridiculous it is to assert that rent control results in a net loss for renters.

oh and fizzandpop please don't try to lecture anyone on the "realities of economics" when you apparently have no idea what you're talking about.