Have they opened an investigation into Tom Means for the money he received from the San Mateo County Association of Realtors while sitting on the Rental Housing Committee?

As to the complaint against the Tenants Coalition, let's all remember that Jeff Zell himself decided to ignore the law and initially refused to comply with Measure V. Did he receive any sort of sanction for that behavior?

[Post removed due to same poster using multiple names]

[Post removed due to same poster using multiple names]

While I understand the issue of affordable housing, imposing rent control in my opinion is very similar to a control economy in communist countries. While prices are kept low artificially, it provides a strong disincentive for more people to enter the market. The end result is that stuff runs out.

If you want lower prices you should increase competition by making it attractive to put your property up for rent.

It remains to be seen how this will go, but in every other economic scenario I've seen where the price of goods was fixed by the government, it only resulted in more shortages.

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Everyone,

Just realize that many landlords are not skilled, they have no business education, nor any special employment skills. They are in effect trapped into this line of work. Some in fact are retired from their work. They chose to be landlords because they thought it was an “easy” or “low skilled” profitable business. That is proving to be “NOT TRUE”.

Their business model is that they can SKILLFULLY MANAGE THEIR PROPERTIES WHICH RESULTS IN SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER COSTS TO THEM, or simply raise rents to maintain their current “quality” of life. To many of these people, THEY SIMPLY DO NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND HOW TO MANAGE THEIR PROPERTY EXPENSES, so they do the latter.

Just look at this example:

“Nemat Matt Maleksalehi, 74, of Saratoga, owns an apartment complex in the 1700 block of Woodland Avenue in East Palo Alto. He smashed the car windows of three of his tenants to get them to move from the complex, East Palo Alto police discovered. The city's Rent Stabilization Ordinance caps rent-increase limits, but when a tenant leaves the rent may be brought up to market value.

Maleksalehi pleaded no contest to felony vandalism on Feb. 8 on the condition that he would receive a maximum of one year in county jail and pay full restitution to his victims. His defense urged the court to reduce his conviction to a misdemeanor; prosecutors argued that his case should remain a felony.”( Web Link

This is a painful situation. Many landlords are in a situation where they were enticed by real estate to get into the business by “promises”. MY LANDLORD TESTIFIED IN COURT THAT HIS “REAL ESTATE” AGENT “PROMISED” HIM HE COULD RENT MY APARTMENT AT OVER $1000.00 MORE THAN I CURRENTLY WAS PAYING, SO THAT WAS WHY HE BOUGHT THE PROPERTY AT 4.5 TIMES ITS VALUE. However real estate agents simply sell what that can at the highest price possible, and in effect do not care if the buyer winds up with a “money-pit”.

So I have always said that both the apartment and the real estate industries have exploited California as a whole, let alone Mountain View. So as far as the following statement:

“Watch the current housing shortage in California further escalate as the shortage becomes a true housing crisis of epic proportions when units disappear from market through redevelopment, life estate squatting tenants never move and (even the threat of) Costa-Hawkins repeal on next November's midterm election ballot completely shuts down the multifamily housing construction industry overnight.”

That is just an empty threat. As long as there is a demand for it, there will be apartments in California. As far as rent control causing the problem, only 4.5% of the state has it and it applies only to older buildings built before 1995. The fact is the housing crisis already exists, AND WAS CAUSED BY THE APARTMENT AND REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY, and not rent controls. This is simply NOT TRUE.

Rent control is a fallacy for the uneducated working poor mob.

Somebody once said, "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time".

Oh ya, Abraham Lincoln. He actually figured out rent control 200 years ago and these people keep trying to reinvent it to work?!

In response to The Donald you said:

“Rent control is a fallacy for the uneducated working poor mob.”

Not only is this statement objectionable, it may in fact be false. I have 2 business degrees, and from what I understand all economic studies used to claim rent control is the problem why affordable housing is unavailable are simply invalid. They were funded and performed by those with a financial conflict of interest. In fact since 2012, those studies have been disqualified by the America Economic Association because they do not comply with financial disclosure guidelines found here (Web Link You also said:

“Somebody once said, "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time". “

This seems like you are in fact describing your own behavior. The Real Estate and Apartment Industries have always denied all responsibility for the housing crisis, when they’re the ones that in fact have practically no rent control in California. Only 4.5% of California cities have rent control and it applies to only the apartments older than 1995. You also said:

“Oh ya, Abraham Lincoln. He actually figured out rent control 200 years ago and these people keep trying to reinvent it to work?!”

I think your referring to the webpage (Web Link

First, this essay does not appear to be written by a historian, and does not seem to reference any historical documents certifying any comments made regarding Lincoln and rent control. I am simply dumbfounded that one would even make this claim. Second, it looks like this listing in google has been removed just today. In fact FDR signed the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, which applied to apartment rent, and Harry Truman signed into law the Housing and Rent Act of 1947, which appears to be the first and second Federal Rent Control law signed.

I have never heard if they were ever repealed, so in fact there is a federal rent control law, not that it has ever been enforced.