SF Gate reports that  the legislation introduced by Senator Mark Leno to prohibit landlords from using the Ellis Act during the first five years they own a building won enough support to move out of the state senate’s Transportation Committee.

The Ellis Act was approved in 1985, supporters of the reform argue, to let long term landlords leave the rental market, but it is increasingly being used by new owners wanting to get rid of old tenants.

San Francisco has the highest rent in the nation, and the city’s rent-control housing supply has decreased by more than 1,000 units in the past two fiscal years, according to a report from the city controller. Other reports place the loss even higher.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, who attended Tuesday’s hearing, said unchecked speculators are taking advantage of the city’s limited housing supply. READ MORE

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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.

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8 Comments

  1. No person wanting to make a home a primary residence would wait 5 years. They won’t buy at all. The only folks that can afford the 5 year wait are big time developers. The big time developer has to make up for the 5 year loss of income so must turn the residence into luxury units and sell high or rent high. Long term, this hurts the middle class. Unintended consequences…..

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      1. Correct, Zaphod, fiddling with the sequence and timing of events does not change the underlying dynamic at work here, which is that if you limit rents and evictions too excessively, then fewer people will be willing to continue being a landlord.

        And as landlords quit and their rental buildings no longer are available, rents will simpler go higher and higher.

        Unless the structural problem is addressed, nothing will change. At some point the city needs to see value in having a healthy, vibrant and viable landlord sector.

        Punishing people who provide housing has never led to plentiful, affordable housing.

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  4. Loco politicos go to bat against families struggling to keep their properties. Airbnb makes profits off illegal tenancies as tenants rent their living rooms to make ends meet. A double edged sword cuts twice – but in virtual reality the sword can have many more edges and cuts through our SF fog, yet we still can’t see any further than our own noses cut off despite our face…

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  5. SF Socialism penalizes families owning 1-4 units, supporting rents for well to do tenants… Airbnb exploits tenants looking to keep low rent apartments so they can make $$$ off of struggling immigrant families.

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