Why is it that condos and townhomes that are rented aren't covered?? Our landlord is greedy, cheap, and just not a nice person. He increases it every year and last year doubled the increase and four months early. Dreading next month when he increased it last year. It's not right. Why are only apartments covered? I can't afford the yearly increases as I have to take it out of our food budget.

I agree! And why doesn't this apply to housing prices and mortgages? I MUST live in Mountain View, there's nowhere else to live so I have to stay here and these prices are cuttting into my budget as well! And while we're at it, I'm tired of my 11-yr old car, it looks old and doesn't ride nice and smooth as when it was new, why are these car dealers charging so much for new cars, they're so greedy!

It's not fair, I should be able to stay here if I want, everybody is just so greedy!

Sigh

just to give an idea of the difficulty in establishing accurate and fair (if such is possible) control of allowable rent increases, here are some considerations. How much does one allow in establishing an allowance for future maintenance costs. Should that allowance be a higher percentage for owners of small rental properties versus large complexes? After all there are economies of scale. As an example the Americana Apartments have a gross monthly income somewhere 1 1/4 million dollars per month. Spending a few tens of thousand dollars to refurbish some elevators (or even all of them) is a tiny percentage of gross yearly income. What about the small property owner and his 8 unit apartment house? Refurbishing just one elevator represents over 10% of his entire annual income. So how do we handle That?

Think of all the various types of costs involved in maintaining a rental structure. Do we have different rules for structures with elevators, swimming pools, extensive landscaping, tile roofs (which last a very long time) versus composition roofs (which don't)?

I could go on, but I won't bore you much further. For example what types of expense do we allow? Maintenance, of course, but how about establishing a fund for possible future costs? Lastly, how do we distinguish at this point in time between the generous property owner that has kept past increases to a minimum, and the greedy one that has imposed the maximum he can get away with?

Let's hope the rent committee is infinitely smarter than I, as I have no idea how to do it.

A realtor supported state bill was passed in 1995 that limits what housing can be rent controlled. It is named Costa Hawkins Rental Act. One restriction it imposes is that units which can be individually sold, (i.e. single family homes and condo's) cannot be covered by rent control.

Here is an article on recent interest in repealing Costa Hawkins.
Web Link

@alan i haven't seen any small rental buildings with pools. Elevators seem rare as well, particularly in older buildings.

The bigger question is soft ground floor car ports that can fail in an earthquake. Fortunately, that can be addressed as a mandatory improvement and thus eligible for a rent increase.

People, Mountain view isn't the first city to do rent stabilization. Other cities have had programs for years. This is a solved problem. The rhc would be well advised to just copy the regulations of Berkeley or Santa Monica or east palo alto and tweak from there.

@stella, because 90% of mountain view rentals are in multi unit buildings.

It was better to get a measure passed to cover the vast majority.

Later measures can cover mobile homes or other rental situations if needed.

My humble observation:

The news report here said:

“No specific amount for a rent increase is being recommended by city staff; however CPI data attached to the staff report indicates Bay Area price increases were only 0.6 percent over this four-month period.”

Given that logically speaking 3 times 4 equals 12, we should multiply .6% by 3 which equals 1.8%. However the CSFRA requires at minimum of 2%.

Thus if we follow the letter of CSFRA, the board will be constrained to 2%

It's just an observation

Here is a bill likely to pass very soon it is called AB1505 and it is found here:

Web Link

This bill will empower the City to require minimum BMR housing requirement quotas.

This bill is designed to have cities like Mountain View comply with the agreement of the Association of Bay Area Governments. The agreement states that the City of Mountain View must act to achieve the objectives of the ABAG. If you look at the map regarding Priority Development Areas, almost 50% of the city is a defined PDA.

The County of Santa Clara was evaluated regarding achievement in affordable housing it met 27% of Very Low Income housing, 28% Low income Housing and 139% of above market housing.

WAIT look at that 28% VLI Housing, 28% LI Housing and %139 of Above Market Housing . This means that as far as Santa Clara is concerned NO improvement can be expected if the Bay Area Governments do not take an active role in forcing increased affordable housing.

In Mountain View itself the report indicates that it reaches 42% of VLI Housing and only 7% LI Housing, 1% MODERATE housing, but a whopping 207% increases in Above Market Housing

What is amazing is that the apartment industry simply dropped the median housing market entirely given it only satisfies 1% of the Moderate housing market. Simple enough, the evidence shows that the luxury apartments built are 5 time more than moderate or lower housing. This housing practice is simply incredible.

This is evidence alone that when AB 1505 passes, which looks very likely given just 2 more votes in the Senate are needed, it WILL get signed by our Governor.

THE CITY MUST SIMPLY PUT ITS FOOT DOWN AND REQUIRE 1 AFFORDABLE UNIT SATISFYING Very Low Income CITIZENS, 1 AFFORDABLE UNIT FOR EVERY Low Income CITIZENS, 1 UNIT AFFORDABLE FOR MEDIAN EARNING CITIZENS, FOR EVERY ONE ABOVE MARKET UNIT. THAT’S 1 VLI + 1 LI + 1 MED to 1 LUXURY APARTMENT. THATS 3 UNITS TO 1 UNIT LUXURY.

HERE IS THE DATA I FOUND: Web Link

IF A DEVELOPER REFUSES TO DO SO, THEY ARE SIMPLY NOT WORTH DOING BUSINESS WITH.

Keep everything as close to zero as possible :) landlords already made extra fortune in the past decade. Enough of that spiral!

@No Kidding

"I agree! And why doesn't this apply to housing prices and mortgages?"

You already have an equivalent of rent control via Prop 13.

No, I have a "controlled" price by taking out a 30 year loan at a fixed rate, By putting up every last dollar and cent I owned and taking on a million dollar mortgage.

@YIMBY

Property tax is only a portion of the cost of owning a home. The mortgage is much more substantial and requires a very long term commitment with no easy way in or out. When you pay rent, you actually get a more flexible arrangement with a cost that is lower than the equivalent market mortgage payment. Downside to renting used to be that the market rate changes could have an immediate impact on the rental cost, but now that is gone with rent control. It would seem that it's much better now to rent because the owner is burdened with paying the mortgage and unable to increase rents to cover the costs of maintaining a property which double here every 10 years (not an exaggeration). The CPI doesn't come close to measuring the costs of owning property here. It seems like we have sped up the retirement of the older rental properties and made it very unattractive for a new owner to come in and revive them.

@@YIMBY

Yeah, that's how borrowing money works. You still pay property taxes on the land, and your property taxes are currently pegged to a point in time when you first purchased the property rather than fluctuate with market value, much like how rent control pegs rent to a point in time rather than let it fluctuate with market value.

@David

You make it sound like homeownership is this terrible burden that isn't worth it compared to renting. You're building equity with it, that's the tradeoff.

@YIMBY

Assuming the market always goes up, I would agree- you are building equity with home ownership. If the cost of entry is high, you are counting on the market going up to make up for the high entry cost. Every now and then all markets cool off. You might be able to find some people that remember taking a cold shower in the dips.

I don't think the long time property owners around here are bad people. It's pretty expensive to run a business, and they likely make their money in good times and lose some in the bad. If they do well enough, they invest that money back.

Like many well intentioned efforts there are unintended consequences one of which is the reduction in available housing.

The policy is also one sided. Specifically when there is an economic downturn, landlords will be forced to adjust rents downwards, and tenants have the option to walk away at the end of their lease and shop around for the best property in their budget I.e. It will be a buyers market; however in economic booms I.e sellers market landlords will not be able to raise their prices to market levels and shop around for the best tenant.

Furthermore, rent control protects one group I.e. existing tenants against two groups: landlords who are naturally attempting to maximise profits from their investment, and new tenants who can afford and are willing to pay the prices that the market will bear

Here is a simple observation:

You only provide luxury apartments in the market, you force people to over pay for what services they want or need. This is the strategy of supply-side economics. The suppliers work to shape what options the market can choose from. NOT WHAT THE MARKET WANTS. The market is simply like cattle. IF ONLY PREMIUM 93 OCTANE GASOLINE IN THE GAS STATIONS IN A TOWN, NO AVAILABILITY FOR 87 OCTANE GASOLINE, YOU FORCE ALL CUSTOMERS TO BUY OVERPRICED GASOLINE.

The owners complain they are not making enough return on investment. The costs of upkeep and services involved in luxury facilities is significantly higher. That was the CHOICE of the developer. The public is not responsible for that mistake.

The housing market is treated very different to any other market because it is critical in order for any other business activity to have any chance to succeed. Simple enough, you have no workers in the area, and you have no business.

The apartment industry has been arguing a false concept that the market is efficiently providing the choices to the consumer. The truth is that by manipulating the market options, they have manipulated the prices. This has been the intent all along. I am surprised no one ever challenged it as anti-trust market violations.

@David

Sure, real estate is an investment that can go south, and that's especially aggravating when the investment is high. But at the same time no one is owed a return on their investment, it's always going to come with risk. And you can argue that one of the reasons why the cost is so high is that you're very likely to see a return on your property investment here in the Bay Area. Housing supply is constrained and will likely continue to be so for a long while. Really, rather than make an argument that essentially is that landlords in the Bay Area are taking a huge risk with a huge upfront cost and therefore should have an advantage in protections, why not reduce the risk and upfront cost and work to get housing supply up so having some small slice of property in the Bay Area isn't this monumental investment?

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The rent control on apartments just drove up my rent for my house. I used to look for comparable 3 bedroom apartments rent and negotiate with my landlord. Now I can't find anything since no one is moving. And all the new people are in the same boat. I wonder if I did the right thing.

The rent control is for older smaller buildings which used to offer lower rents as a balance to the corporate, 200+ units complexes. I am afraid we just lost that option forever, and I and the new ones are worse off.

MLer

Unfortunately, the residential housing business is managed by those who will exploit anything that is not controlled under business law. Unfortunately Costa Hawkins currently prohibits any remedy regarding public policies regarding renting a home.

I would be in favor of any kind of relief for you we can create. I am NOT SELFISH.

It would be good if we could have a uniform set of laws for all the US. But the housing industry would be against it because it manipulates the local market rules for its benefit.

At the very least a simple solution would have been to provide a federal assistance program to the tenants of all rental resources. The problem would be though the prices would simply go up in proportion to the assistance to make more profit.

But if you contact the Stanford Law Clinic, they should assist you in seeing what could be done regarding another ballot proposition, you have MY VOTE.

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