The problem is not, mind you, that the either tenants or property owners were “victorious” so much as the fact that the battle is so contentious and the stakes are so high. Of course there are battles like this in other urban areas as well, but it’s always somewhat amplified in SF because of two factors: (1) rent control, which tends to artificially inflate rents on vacant properties and to artificially deflate rents on occupied ones, and (2) the “activist factor” in SF which tends to amplify pretty much every issue.
There’s other baggage there for me as well, but this is a major part of why I was so anxious to get out of SF eight years ago and why it often seemed so exhausting to live there. No matter how hard you work, your standard of living–or the residential component thereof–will only ever improve so much. On a reasonably good salary by most California standards, I would not currently be able to afford market rent even the dingy hovel I used to occupy South of Market.San Francisco unfortunately works well neither for homeowners nor for renters in this regard.
Granted, there’s much less demand for living spaces here in the heart of the Piedmont Triad for a variety of reasons but it sure does make life a lot simpler sometimes.
(Nod to Andréa Lindsay et Luc De Larochellière.)
I would say the biggest factors for SF being such an expensive place are 1) Popularity, and 2) Limited supply of housing, and that zoning (by helping to create #2) is a far bigger contributor to high housing cost than rent control (which as you alluded more moves the cost around, from long-term tenants to newer ones, than holds housing cost down).
Of course landlords hate rent control, and most housing activists love it, so it’s rent control that gets all the heated arguments. And I’m not sure I’d really want to see either rent control or zoning abolished there; I don’t think pricing out the few remaining non-affluent holdouts from SF would much improve the place, nor would turning it into a city of high-rises.
The real solution is a large number of people doing what you (and I) have done: live someplace else.
Granted the primary problem is supply and that zoning is the major culprit on that front (along with limited land in the specific areas people want to live in). Zoning, by following PERCEIVED demand, also impacts the type of units constructed with the end result of making the city relatively inhospitable to anything but singles or DINKs. There’s a fair amount of discussion on that subject in Toronto these days as well.
I’m admittedly not wild about rent control in principle, despite having benefited from it for many years. If there has to be rent control, though, not also having vacancy control–which would regulate increases between tenants–virtually guarantees that any sane landlord will raise the rent on any vacant apartment as much as possible anytime a tenant moves out. I still think that is a pretty major factor.
As you say, best for both of us that it’s no longer our problem, I guess…
What was the rent for the SOMA hovel while you lived there and what is the market rate now? It was a 2 bedroom wasn’t it? And you were able to afford such a place on single salary working as a manager at Kinko’s? I wonder what type of place a Kinko’s manager today could afford? Most likely an illegal in-law unit in the vast Outer Sunset owned by a slumlord, but even then that person would be struggling. I’d imagine more realistically they’d only be able to rent a tiny room out in the Avenues.
I’ve been following rents in SF from 2008 to the present. In 2008, decent studios in decent hoods could be had for around $1200. But now, you can expect to pay around $1600. A co-worker on mine was renting a nice studio on Church street near Market street for $650 (rented for over a decade), market rate was around $1500 at the time back in 2008. I wouldn’t be surprised if it would rent for $2000 if placed on the market now.
I remember while looking for rooms for rent back in 2008, there was one place where the leasee moved out about a year prior but kept her name on the lease so her subletting friends could rent the place cheaply with rent control. I imagine some people who live in places with absentee landlords could make a profit from subleasing apartments that have been occupied for a while.
Then there’s were the wonderful times riding Muni aka the toilet and mental institution on wheels…