You may consider yourself "a brave man," but you're also a classic narcissist who seems to be auditioning for the role of New San Francisco Public Reactionary, a la C.W. Nevius or Ken Garcia. I have yet to see you shed light on a single topic, and your riling up the latte liberals schtick was stale before you even started it.

Rent control isn't about subsidizing anyone. Yes, that does happen but that is not the point. If you like Prop 13, you gotta like rent control. Both give the residents some surety in what they will pay to live in their home. When someone buys a rent controlled building, they know exactly what they are buying, what the income stream is and make an economic decision to buy that property. You buy it knowing the risks and rewards-it is capitalism after all-there are no guarantees. A tenant moves to another unit/building--they pay market rent-they also make an economic decision that they can afford that unit.

Remember the dotcom bust? SF suffered the least in that because rent control kept all those kids with tons of money from running out all the lower income folks who provide services to the restaurant and hotel industry. When the bust came and 60,000 kids moved back home with the folks, SF did better than all those cities who saw their rents run up, only to implode and leave those cities in shambles for years.

Rent control only happens in cities where there is no ability to respond to demand-unlike Sacramento where homes and apartments spring up like mushrooms--and die as quickly in a bust. It tempers the excesses of booms and avoids the crash of a bust. And you didn't see many apartment buildings in SF in foreclosure these past years did you? Landlords do very well under rent control--it's a very transient city-rents go to market with each turnover--and tenants who make SF their home do very well if they choose stability over the next best view. Sounds like a win-win for almost all.

There are some substantive comments, sure. But it seems like a lot of name calling and condescension to me.

You're right about rent control being on the third rail of politics - but it does not occupy that special place by itself.

Parking and most especially, DOGS loom very large in endless heated, conflicting opinions and the ever popular, threats of bodily harm
to he who steps over some unwritten line.

It seems to me that renters should be able to tell what they will be paying in rent from one year to the other. They, like home-owners with mortgages, should be able to plan for their future and to be financially responsible. That's why rent control (or rent stableization) should be law. Of course, landlords should be allowed pro-rated increases for necessary updates to the property and should be allowed to move into their own property (or have relatives move in). It's only common sense, at least to me.

Scott - Good for you for taking on this important topic. Not just the rent-control topic but the dramatic changes going on in San Francisco as a result of yet another high-volume influx of highly-paid young people in the tech sector and the socio-cultural effects this is having on San Francisco.

The comments rhetoric clearly shows this topic is beyond reasonable debate for most people and is more in the realm of religious divide than reasoned discussion.

I just read through some of the comments on the earlier story, and I'm reminded of why Economics is taught rather than considered an innate ability.

Rent control is basically a type of option added to the base rent. That is, the initial rent is set to cover both the cost of the dwelling, and the cost of an ongoing monthly call option which keeps the rent at a fixed rate below inflation. As such the rent is initially above what it would be in a month-to-month market, but eventually drops below it as the option becomes valuable. The landlord bets that the tenant's freedom to move will be worth more than the option, while the tenant bets that it will be less.

I'm surprised there isn't a secondary market for these, as landlords could buy some kind of put option to hedge against losses. The city could help out by offering small landlords insurance against long-term tenancy. For instance an insurance charge on the first 5-10 years of tenancy might cover an annuity thereafter, for units which are still occupied after that time. Small landlords which purchased this insurance would be able to bring their long-term income closer to average and lower their risks.

Right, Mr.James, right. Oh wait, then there's THIS little problem:

NEW YORK TIMES

February 24, 2012
Rents Keep Rising, Even as Housing Prices Fall
By MOTOKO RICH

The housing market remains a potent drag on the economy as home prices continue to slip, foreclosed homes fill some neighborhoods and millions of construction workers scramble for jobs.

But one group is sitting pretty: landlords.

Unlike home prices, rents have been rising, up 2.4 percent in January from a year earlier, according to recent data, not adjusted for inflation, released by the Labor Department.

With few rental buildings erected over the last few years, available units are going fast. Nationwide, the apartment vacancy rate is down to 5.2 percent, its lowest level in more than a decade, according to the research firm Reis Inc.

Rent increases are greatest in places like San Francisco, Austin, Tex., and Boston, where technology companies in particular are hiring, as well as in New York City and the District of Columbia. But cities like Chicago and Seattle, where house prices are still declining quite sharply, have had rental increases, too.

“We are more of a renter nation than we have been for a while,” said Christopher J. Mayer, a professor of real estate at the Columbia University Business School.

Economists suggest favorable conditions for landlords will continue for at least a year, with employment gradually rising and construction of new apartments remaining constrained.

As job growth has begun to accelerate in recent months, young people are starting to move out of their parents’ homes or away from shared rooms and into their own rentals.

Families who might previously have bought homes are also staying in rentals longer. They may be waiting for the housing market to hit bottom or finding it difficult to qualify for a mortgage. Many others remain uncertain about their job prospects and wary of the obligations of ownership.

When Charles Griffith moved with his wife and two children to Orlando, Fla., last fall, they chose a new two-bedroom apartment for $1,140 a month. They left a four-bedroom house they had bought a decade ago in Antioch, Calif. His brother-in-law has moved in and taken over the mortgage payments.

Mr. Griffith, who works as a supervisor for Southwest Airlines, and his wife, a customer service representative for the airline, are enjoying the flexibility and convenience of renting, as well as amenities like a pool. “We kind of like the situation now of not having to be under so much pressure,” said Mr. Griffith, 40, adding that the family may eventually buy in Orlando. But “with the economy and the airline industry, that factors into us thinking maybe we should hold off for a while.”

The home ownership rate has been falling from its peak of 69.4 percent in 2004, according to census data. By the fourth quarter of 2011, it was down to 66 percent. That means about two million more households are renting, said Kenneth Rosen, an economist and professor of real estate at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

Not all those people are choosing apartments, of course. Some are moving into single-family homes left vacant by foreclosures. Eager to capitalize on the trend, investors are scooping up some houses at a deep discount and leasing them to tenants who have lost their own homes.

Several prominent hedge funds and private equity firms have recently announced plans to invest in distressed properties and convert them to rentals. And earlier this month, the government solicited applications from investors interested in buying pools of foreclosed properties held by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration.

Still, it is in apartments, not houses, where renters are feeling the most competition.

Although many families crushed by the recession have doubled up and plenty of underemployed 20-somethings are living with their parents, some young people are finally getting their own space. Nearly 60 percent of job gains in the last two years have gone to people who are 20 to 34, a crucial rental group, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by G. Ronald Witten, a consultant to apartment companies.

During the economic downturn, apartment developers retrenched. The number of new apartments completed fell from 284,200 in 2006 to less than half that number in 2011, according to census data.

The limited supply is pushing up prices in some markets. In San Francisco, rents jumped close to 5 percent last year, according to Reis, and increases averaged 3 percent in Austin and New York. Landlords have also been withdrawing incentives like a free month’s rent.

Liz Brent and Matt Mochizuki moved into a studio apartment a year ago in the Mission District in San Francisco for $1,395 a month. Now they want more space.

Ms. Brent, 26, makes costumes and is working as a barista at a cafe where customers leave big tips. Mr. Mochizuki, 27, has a steady job making custom metal work for a design studio. They are budgeting $1,800 a month in rent.

But at an open house for an apartment billed as a one-bedroom, they found a studio with an awkward layout and bad light. More than 40 people were in line, many ready to hand over a check.

“That’s what the market is like now,” Ms. Brent said of their fruitless search. “That’s how many people showed up for this tiny apartment with no windows.”

Some rental markets remain soft, like Atlanta and Las Vegas, the epicenter of the housing bust. Orlando, too, might seem an unlikely place for rental strength. The unemployment rate, at 9.7 percent, is higher than the national average, and home prices slipped 4.6 percent last year, according to the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller home price index.

Yet Ric Campo, chief executive of Camden Properties, a real estate investment trust that owns apartment buildings, said rental business was brisk at its LaVina development. Since the office for the 420-unit complex opened last summer, more than half the apartments have rented.

That’s “a faster rate than we’ve ever seen in Orlando,” Mr. Campo said. The company has raised the base rent on a two-bedroom apartment to $1,080, from $995 a month.

Many now wonder about a more profound shift among future buyers. Matt Byford, a 24-year-old litigation consultant in Chicago, acknowledges that low interest rates and low prices favor buying. But he says he is renting and in no hurry to buy, because he doesn’t expect much to change soon.

Brad Forrester, chief executive of the ConAm Group, which manages about 50,000 apartments in the western United States, says, “I think it’s going to be interesting to see whether there’s been a fundamental sociological shift in that 20- to 35-year-old cohort, where they literally say ‘this American dream just doesn’t work for me.’ ”

Scott,

You have not addressed the apparent error in your last story.
The Richens bought a 4-unit building in the 1980s, and you say they are still getting rents from that era because of SF regulations.
But buildings of 4 units or less were not under rent control until 1994. There is no way a two-bedroom apartment went for less than $1,000 in 1994. So your information about the Richens' rents appears terribly faulty. Please explain.

Also, the headline seems pretty silly. Rent control subsidizes the super-rich? Did you find a single super-rich person in a rent-controlled unit, much less a critical mass of super-rich tenants residing in such quarters?

Also, please explain why you aren't writing about subsidies for the wealthy that come out of tenants' pockets when government forces down interest rates to help mortgage holders, or allows $500,000 tax exclusions on real-estate profits, or waves a magic wand over $400,000 TIC and makes it a $600,000 condo.

What a scam that is. You bought a TIC; now you're entitled to more than you paid for. Pay Prop 13 tax rates based on the $400,000 purchase price the whole time you live there, then cash out and pay no taxes on the gain that government made possible. All the while, workers' wages are getting crushed by taxes, making rent harder to pay and a down payment for their own house an impossible dream.

Whenever you give people something for free (that you are in this case taking directly from others), you create a sense of entitlement. Those who were defending rent control in the comments, most simply saying that "rich landlords" can suck it up, have a very strong sense of entitlement where they in fact are simply in favor of stealing from others. They will not listen to reason, and other people's private property is no concern of theirs.

There is such a thing in democracy called a "tyranny of the majority", and in a city like San Francisco where more people are renters than homeowners, it is clear how a politician can score points with the electorate... even if in fact rent control harms the housing market and housing supply, and raises rents for any newcomer to the market.

Prop. 13 and the mortgage interest deduction do not exempt rental properties. The mortgage interest goes on a different form, but still gets deducted as a business expense.

Raising taxes on these items may or may not be a good idea, but the financial impact would not be significantly different between renters and homeowners. Rents would go up to cover the cost.