With eviction rates on the rise, Mission Local asked residents about the housing crisis.
Heather Mack, 30, has spent most of her life outdoors and often hangs out in the less-frequented parks of San Francisco to avoid the crowds of places like Dolores Park on a Saturday. She believes that everyone is happier when they are outdoors, even if they don’t. At Mission Local, Heather wants to explore what healthy living in the Mission looks like for all socioeconomic classes.
More by Heather Mack
John’s “fundamental fact” that
“Buildings get sold, and rental building that have low rents are more likely to get sold, as the owner gets sick of the low rents and sells out. The new owner has higher costs and, while the seller may have at least made some profit, the buyer makes a loss.”
overlooks an *actual* fundamental FACT:
1. No one is FORCING any ‘new owner’ to buy a property at a loss to themselves (that is just a bad business decision), especially one that, for the most part, they do not wish to or intend to live in (because that is majority not what is happening here – there are fewer landlord-move-in-Ellis Evictions than the ‘flip-it-backdoor-TIC” type buy-out/Ellis Evictions)
2) Groups of investors are buying with open eyes as to who lives there and how much they pay, doing the $$ analysis on the cost of these folks’ lives on their bottom lines to make as great a profit as possible. These folks are not even “landlords.” They are flippers.
So if that is the side of the story you want to tell? Go ahead and bring your video camera…. If you can find them hiding behind their LLCs and hidden ownership titles.
Landlords are crucified in the press as the oppressor, tenants as victims.
No landlord advocacy group is going to show up at a tenant’s doorstep to ask for fair treatment. But the opposite? Hell yeah! He’ll get pitchforks, the press, his name in the mud.
Even if the landlord is acting within his own right, he’ll be vilified for using this very legal right.
Boy I’m I glad I own my home and it’s paid off. Ain’t no techy google bussed prick gonna kick me out. I’m born and raised in San Fran. I rent my house to some dumb asses that pay me close to 3 g’s a month while I live on my rent controlled apt with hardwood floors and incredible views for only 900.00… So yeah I’ll take your money. Benefits of being a Native.
And we’ll work our ass off to protect your right to that cheap rent controlled apartment, comrade!
obvious troll is obvious
Or, troll is obviously troll.
I know people who own property outside of San Francisco yet maintain low cost, rent controlled apartments. I also know high income people, some of whom take “Google Buses”, who pay significantly low rents because of rent control. Why is this reasonable? Affordable housing programs, i.e., rent control, should be directed toward those with demonstrated need.
Count me as also bored with these daily, biased stories about super-entitled renters. The economy is improving and there is a construction boom all over the city. Evictions are only higher relative to the depths of the recession. Let’s have some balance please.
Yeah, the tax-payers who subsidize the tech/housing bubble have no right to expect not to be evicted just because their property-owning superiors now want to dispose of the property paid for by others!
How does a tenant paying far below market in rent “subsidize” anyone?
The tenants not only pay for the property in full, they also SUBSIDIZE the lordly lifestyle of the owners. Maybe that’s why they’re called landlords!
In fact, over the 100+ year life of a typical Mission building, tenants have paid for that building many times over.
What you call “below market rate” rent was not forced upon the landlord, it’s the rent HE requested at the time of the move in – and presumably enough to cover his expenses and then some.
Most owners are satisfied with a fair deal. But some are greedy oinkers who feel entitled to sit on their butts and extract obscene amounts of other people’s hard-earned money.
That over looks two fundamental facts:
1) Buildings get sold, and rental building that have low rents are more likely to get sold, as the owner gets sick of the low rents and sells out.
The new owner has higher costs and, while the seller may have at least made some profit, the buyer makes a loss.
2) Capital always gets deployed to earn the best return commensurate with the risk taken. If rents are capped them it is inevitable that, at some point, that capital will be redeployed.
One way or the other, when that happens, the amount of rental supply becomes less, and rents become higher. That’s how rent control actually hurts tenants.
This is getting ridiculous. Why don’t you “journalists” try to actually report facts instead of this propaganda?
Suggestion: Turn off all advertising on any article related to evictions. Deal?
Interviewing average citizens in the street are propaganda now?
look back at 2000-2001 it was worse then. and the city has not died because of evictions that happened then
this is just part of evolution
Not true.
What’s happening now is an entirely different animal than 2000-1. The rents and area affected are FAR greater. This is caused by large companies bussing thousands of highly paid employees into an already overheated real estate market.
The Great Real Estate Rip-Off of 2000-2001 was quint by comparison. It involved far fewer arrivals, and was mainly limited to SOMA. It left the “outer” neighborhoods like the Mission largely unaffected. So although there were many evictions back then, there was a viable plan B: you could find an affordable rental in Mission, Dogpatch, Bernal, etc. Moving a few miles was a hassle, but allowed people to maintain their jobs, family and social connections.
Eviction now is fundamentally different than in 2001. Now, it means leaving SF, and perhaps leaving the Bay Area. Such forced relocation severs job, family and social ties, and therefore is a serious human rights violation.
Not true.
What’s happening now is an entirely different animal than 2000-1. The rents and area affected are FAR greater. This is caused by large companies bussing thousands of highly paid employees into an already overheated real estate market.
The Great Real Estate Rip-Off of 2000-2001 was quint by comparison. It involved far fewer arrivals, and was mainly limited to SOMA. It left the “outer” neighborhoods like the Mission largely unaffected. So although there were many evictions back then, there was a viable plan B: you could find an affordable rental in Mission, Dogpatch, Bernal, etc. Moving a few miles was a hassle, but allowed people to maintain their jobs, family and social connections.
Eviction now is fundamentally different than in 2001. Now, it means leaving SF, and perhaps leaving the Bay Area. Such forced relocation severs job, family and social ties, and therefore is a serious human rights violation.
“Eviction now is fundamentally different than in 2001. Now, it means leaving SF, and perhaps leaving the Bay Area. Such forced relocation severs job, family and social ties, and therefore is a serious human rights violation.”
This is what concerns me the most about the current boom. Many people getting displaced are in danger of losing their jobs and social connections. Oakland or other nearby cities could possibly serve as landing pads for those affected, but that would require an expansion of our current transportation options (24 hour BART, more buses, etc.) as well as greater cooperation between cities to address housing and development concerns. As things stand now, it’s not clear that the greater Bay Area is ready to deal with the significant population shifts that will result from forcing large numbers of lower and middle class people out of SF.
A better approach would be to build more residential units in SF. Demand is clearing outpacing supply at this point and, in my mind, is the biggest driver of the current crisis.
A serious human rights violation? What are you smoking?
I don’t think moving to the cheaper parts of Oakland, which are affordable, is going to kill any of those that can’t afford the mission anymore. It’s only a few miles away for christsake!
10,000+ dead in the Philippines, and you’re complaining about how far Oakland is! Boy, talk about a first world problem.
Nice vid. Don’t worry, the irony of hearing people complain about high rents while sipping their $3.50+ phills coffee was not lost on me.
But seriously, can you cool it with these eviction-rent dramas? Is that what is driving your readership? And yes, how about talking with landlords for a change? If this city continues with artificial rents for the rental entitled, this is what you’re going to get. What’s next? Government take over of all the housing stock and setting prices?
1967 just called. It wants its fruits and nuts back.
Hey, you stole my line!
Generally speaking, I think you guys do a good job of not being too political or ideological, and rather practice true objective journalism rather than the cheap activism and advocacy that is popular in some parts.
But we’re getting to the point with these pieces on evictions where you might want to consider covering this topic from the landlord’s perspective, and seek some understanding why this is happening from a different vantage point.
There are always two sides to every story.
Dang straight. More time for “I’m not making as much money on my investment as I could if the laws were more in my favor”, less of this touch-feely stuff about terminally ill artists thrown out onto the street. Two sides! Two sides! Two sides!
Boo hoo, the plight of the SF landlord. Such an oppressed minority.
We already know the landlords’ perspective by the current epidemic of Ellis Act evictions: it’s avarice.
If this website hopes to serve the Mission, it should focus on the people who live here, not some absentee investor.
(Nobody’s stopping you from reading the right-slanted Chronicle for your daily dose of wealth-porn and a Comments gutter to hate on tenants, who, after all, finance the landlord’s lifestyle year after year.)
There are definitely cases of “mom and pop” landlords who put their life savings into a rental building hoping to be able to live off the rents in their retirement, and then finding that the rents do not keep up with the outgoings and, worse, they get stuck with some “tenants from hell” who they can never get rid of.
In other cases, it is investors who are receiving a very low return on their investment and need to get better returns in order to retire or pay medical or care bills, and an Ellis eviction is the only way to raise the returns.
This “landlords are evil; tenants are angels” line that we sometimes here from partisan sources was never credible.,
Good point, John, and thanks for your reader/viewership! We certainly would like to expand this conversation, although the other side is often far more reluctant to speak to reporters. Thank you for the insight; we will definitely continue our attempts to illuminate this issue in its entirety.
Landlords are crucified in the press as the oppressor, tenants as victims.
No landlord advocacy group is going to show up at a tenant’s doorstep to ask for fair treatment. But the opposite? Hell yeah! He’ll get pitchforks, the press, his name in the mud.
Even if the landlord is acting within his own right, he’ll be vilified for using this very legal right.
I agree. A piece highlighting the concerns of landlords could prove very illuminating for some. Their side of the story has been noticeably absent from much of the local coverage on this issue.
Everybody involved deserves to have their views presented in an objective way.