The blog, 40 going on 28, points to a Craigslist ad for an apartment going for $10,000 a month. Good luck!
We all knew rents were out of control. But this. I can’t even. So many problems here.
His screed against the foolishness of anyone paying that amount of money for an apartment is worth a read.
That listing appears to have vanished from Craigslist, but if you’re looking for great views and have $13,000 a month to spend, there is this offering.
I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still here.
As an old friend once pointed out, local has long been in my bones. My Master’s Project at Columbia, later published in New York Magazine, was on New York City’s experiment in community boards.
As founder and an editor at ML, I've been trying to figure out how to make my interest in local news sustainable. If Mission Local is a model, the answer might be that you - the readers - reward steady and smart content. As a thank you for that support we work every day to make our content even better.
More by Lydia Chávez15 Comments
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Lydia, if you are going to post there “isn’t it outrageous types of pieces (and we know you love to) couldn’t you ate least do some basic research and give the two details that enables that rent to be fairly assessesd?
1) The square footage. Rents per square foot are much more meaningful, because clearly a mansion with 6 bedrooms cannot be compared with a studio.
2) The estimated value of the unit. Rental yields are typically around 5% annual. So a $2.4 million home in SF (of which there are plenty) would typically rent at $1.2 million a year, or 10K a month.
The fact that 99% of SF residents cannot afford this rent is irrelevant. It only matters that one person can.
Please don’t turn ML into “lifestyles of the rich and famous” by featuring homes that none of us can afford. Or are you just trying to stir up populist anger and envy?
You’re you just trying to stir up populist anger and envy?
By your definition, any story on landlords from anything other than a gung-ho booster perspective is communist propaganda. I would say that, in your unflagging effort to squelch reporting on stories that make you uncomfortable, you’re engaging in landlord/elitist/pro-aristocrat propaganda.
No, I was simply adding in the objectivity and neutrality that Lydia, in a fleeting moment of forgetfulness, forgot to provide.
Should ML be leaving it up to ML readers to come up with affordable listings, as a number of us have presented here recently?
Actually, good journalists don’t pretend they are without bias, but they are trained not to let their subjectivity interfere with reporting of facts. Even the very best journalists make errors. But nitpicking details doesn’t refute the substance of a good story. And good journalists don’t take offense when an error is pointed out, because it confirms that they are being read. Lydia and the students here are good journalists. ML is a journalism lab on a meager budget, and your quibbling and nitpicking comes off as sour grapes.
You are confusing “good journalism” with Fox “fair and balanced” bullshit. You know you’re hearing propaganda when a “reporter” tells you he or she is “fair and balanced” while only reporting stories that favor and flatter the 1% and intentionally distorting the facts.
.
Then you have a very different view of “balance” to that of most people and all reputable journalists.
It’s the constant whining about gentrification that is agitprop, because that is only one side of the story.
It’s bullshit because it’s agitprop masquerading as objectivity.
So “balance is bullshit”?
Only if you have an agenda and seek to skew the debate.
Please don’t turn ML into “lifestyles of the rich and famous” by featuring homes that none of us can afford.
That’s rich, John (pun intended). ML is nothing like “Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous.” Good journalism digs up unpleasant truths; crappy journalism is celebrity gossip, man-bites-dog, and and feel-good found-kitty stories. Your preference is clear.
You know, 90% of the stories on landlord-centric sites like SocketSite and CurbedSF are abouta high-priced property or rent, and SFgate usually features a high-priced property at the top of the page. You’re always upset that ML focuses on the consequences of escalating prices for non-landlords, but I don’t see you haranguing the landlord blogs for doing THE EXACT SAME THING, but just from a different — the landlord/property owner’s — perspective. Although you’re always trying to tell ML what to write about and how to write about it, you don’t seem at all concerned when the landlord sites, which ARE the functional equivalent of “Lifestyles.:
Big difference, twobeers. Those RE sites you listed are specifically pro-RE websites. Everyone knows that and there is no pretense at objectivity.
But ML is claiming to be doing journalism, which implies presenting both sides of the story. It’s not a pro-tenant site. Yet when was the last ML piece about a tenant behaving badly?
My point was twofold. First that Lydia presents some stats instead of this “isn’t it big” narrative. And second that she employ some balance, respecting the idea that there good and bad among both landlords and tenants.
Socketsite John…join the dark side!
Ok, on vaca in Mexico peeps. Gotta go!
You’re wrong, John. Real journalism is about reporting facts, not about presenting “both sides of the story.” There are different interpretations of facts — that’s where opinion columnists come in, and blog comment forums (e.g. the damage-control propagandists such as the landlord echo chamber in these forums).
If facts make you uncomfortable, that’s a different. issue. I would guess that people reacting emotionally to these specific facts confirms to Lydia that this is an important issue.
I think that the angrier you, Bob, ThatTroll, poorass, and the rest of the obstreperous landlord chamber gets, the more it confirms to Lydia that she’s doing good work Keep that anger stoked, boys!
Btw, SocketSite does an excellent job in presenting the facts about SF property. Of course, it’s commentariat are even more landlord/realtor-centric than here, albeit they are generally more sophisticated and polite than, say, Bob or ThatTroll. When I’ve gone off on my economics rant there, instead of attacking me ad hominem, they seem genuinely perplexed that anyone could question the hallowed and sanctified models of S&D that are the very foundation of their worldview.
Often it’s not the validity and relevance of an alleged “fact” that matters so much as which fact you choose.
In the last 24 hours, we have had a 2BR home in SF renting for $1,150 a month cited here and a 4BR home renting for 10K a month.
The former cite is trying to paint a picture of there being affordable homes. The latter is suggesting things are out of control bad.
The truth, of course, is in the middle but you wouldn’t know that from either of those carefully selected “facts”. That’s the problem.
I’m not angry at all. Why would I be?
PT Barnum is smiling somewhere.
And W.C. Fields: “Never give a sucker an even break.”
Plenty of people in SF make 300K to 400K a year. This rental would not seem expensive to them.