It's a regulatory moat as much as it is tenant protections.

Sell it

I'll probably end up selling it. Then it will get torn down and replaced with 4-6 units at US $800k+ each. It's hard to walk away from $4.8 million in development potential. I would be lucky to clear $900k selling it.

I tried to rent most from mom and pop landlords but the ones here in the Bay Area have been mostly terrible to deal with. I even had to take one to court. I think you’re extremely lucky to just have one increase over 15 years. Conversely, the corporate ones were much easier to deal with it (although the promptness of repair is 50/50).

I can think of a couple who were absolute nightmares. I can think of a couple others who were an absolute dream. The worst small-time landlord was WAY worse than the worst big property management firm, but the best small-time landlord was far better than the best big property management firm I've been a tenant of.

And yeah, I'm also a low-maintenance tenant. Unless something's broken, I never want to talk to you, nor do I want you in the space that I'm renting. EZ money for them.

> Tenants rights should not include the right to basically be a nuisance and a leech upon society.

The thing about strong tenants' rights laws is they're not protection against reasonable landlords; they are a shield against scumbag landlords who would treat their tenants very poorly.

For example, in San Francisco, someone who stays in a place for thirty days without a lease becomes a month-to-month tenant that requires an eviction to remove. Why? Because scumbag landlords would refuse to provide leases to tenants and toss them out into the streets on a moment's notice.

Similarly, I recall regulation preventing hotels from requiring tenants to check out and then check back in during extended stays. [0] Why? So that scumbag hotel operators can't prevent the long-term rental regulations from taking effect for renters who are -in fact- long-term renters.

To point at an analogous situation: the same rules and regulations that generally prevent cops from putting very, very careful wrongdoers who should be imprisoned (but haven't left enough evidence to prove their wrongdoing) behind bars generally also prevent cops from imprisoning folks who have done nothing wrong just on those cops' say-so.

[0] Though, I'm unable to muster the effort required to locate this regulation.

There should be mechanisms where through a process tenants can legally withhold rent if basic repairs or maintenance aren't being done. If a landlord can't or won't do it, they shouldn't be a landlord.

Evicting a tenant should be hard or expensive for any other reason (selling the property, landlord wanting to move in, etc).

I have mixed feelings around rent controls, though. In a healthy, competitive market they should be unnecessary over the long term, but if cities are going to restrict housing construction...

They're a (terrible-outcome-causing) band aid over a combination of too many people and not enough construction.

Look into California's state-wide property tax control law commonly known as Proposition 13. Then look into California's anti-rent-control law commonly known as Costa-Hawkins.

I do agree that rent control should never, ever have a reason to exist. But sometimes there are super fucked-up situations on the ground that make rent control better than not having it.

A simple cap on rent does not work, true. But comprehensive policies to keep rent down and local people housed, can work

For sure - making sure demand doesn't massively for housing exceed supply of housing is all you need.

Sure, if you stop paying, and if there isn't some sort of temporary hardship that you could reasonably fight your way through to make good on back and current rent. Given what you've written, I expect that you know that that's part of what the eviction process is for... determining if the landlord is lying about the state of the tenant/landlord business relationship and determining if letting the tenant stay in the place for a while longer would result in a far, far better outcome for the tenant and minimal harm to the landlord.

> I have mixed feelings around rent controls...

I don't. Rent controls are godawful price distortions that should not have any reason to exist. However, I'm very glad I live in a rent-controlled San Francisco apartment. Why? Because every landowner in the state of California has property tax control, regardless of whether their property is their personal home, a residential rental, or most any other commercial property.

It's massively unfair that landowners across the state get to control a huge part of their costs, but it's illegal for all but a very few cities in the state to permit residents to do the same. [0]

Get rid of the property tax control across the board, wait a year or four for everything to shake out, then I'd be fine with getting rid of rent control in California.

[0] Seriously, Costa-Hawkins can go straight to hell.

Unless it's public housing (which for the record I do support, though I think that in practice it should be at the margins in most jurisdictions), landlords shouldn't be part of the social safety net (unless they have some extra tax advantage in exchange - fun fact is that as much as hospitals whine about the costs of having to treat everybody in the ER regardless of ability to pay, they actually have a very generous tax benefit for it). Having temporary unemployment/hardship vouchers up to some max is one thing, but if you can't pay after a certain amount of time you shouldn't be in private housing. Maybe 60 days is too soon, but in many jurisdictions it can be far, far longer. I am not at all opposed to a due process in withholding rent if the landlord side of the contract is not being upheld, my example was for "I can't or won't pay for some non-housing reasons".

I pretty much agree with everything you said about rent controls, which is why I said "mixed feelings". California, arguably the greatest state in the union, is ungovernable due to the fact that the government literally can't govern when it comes to taxation (and even mandated spending). If there is a healthy market where supply and demand can be balanced, there should be no need for it.

Oh, I very much am. But I'm also keenly aware of the need for strong, well-enforced regulation in order to maintain functional markets so that we continue to have a strong capitalist system. The US is sorely lacking in the "strong, well-enforced regulation" department, so...

> ...landlords shouldn't be part of the social safety net...

This is a distinction that's not at all clear.

In nearly all jurisdictions, landlords give up very many of their property rights when they rent it out for folks to live in. For example, they are expected to meet basic habitability requirements (and cannot fob responsibility for this off to their tenants), and are very often barred from wandering into their property whenever they feel like.

Some landlords out there would argue pretty strenuously that the raft of restrictions they're burdened with means that they already are part of the social safety net.

I would argue that providing rental housing to people who can't afford to buy in the area is totally being part of the social safety net.

> ...unless they have some extra tax advantage in exchange...

Man, landlords (especially ones in "hot" areas) get so many financial advantages. I'm disinterested in giving them more.

> ...if you can't pay after a certain amount of time you shouldn't be in private housing.

Perhaps this is what you meant by "vouchers", but what if if The State covers the missing part of the tenant's financial obligations to their landlord? If the tenant's fallen on hard times (but is otherwise a fine tenant), why should the landlord care where the money comes from? The problem with "Just go live in public housing" is that in so many places, public housing just doesn't exist.

The TL;DR is of course there are edge cases for everything. There are reasons that are perfectly "fine" for rent being late, etc. I could have had a personal emergency. My bank could have had computer problems, etc. There are also reasons it can take time for a landlord to fix something. I may as a tenant willingly prioritize cheaper rent, knowing that my plumbing issue may take longer to fix as a wait for a cheaper plumber not on call 24x7 can take longer.

There are deadbeat landlords and there are deadbeat tenants. IMHO, whatever the law dictates should make it suck to be either. If a rule needs to pick a side, it should probably tilt to the tenant as a landlord should otherwise know what they're getting into with risks, etc.

> In nearly all jurisdictions, landlords give up very many of their property rights when they rent it out for folks to live in. For example, they are expected to meet basic habitability requirements (and cannot fob responsibility for this off to their tenants), and are very often barred from wandering into their property whenever they feel like.

This is not true everywhere. In many parts of Europe, the tenant is responsible for almost everything after it exits a wall, including in cabinets, a good chunk of plumbing, utilities, and appliances (this is particularly true in Switzerland and Germany - there are many stories of perplexed foreigners moving into apartments they saw that was still being used by the previous tenants and seeing striped down kitchens, etc).

> Some landlords out there would argue pretty strenuously that the raft of restrictions they're burdened with means that they already are part of the social safety net.

This is true. Like many people, I've lived in sub-standard housing in my student days. Hilariously, I look fondly on that era of my life because I knew it was temporary and of course we prioritized alcohol, fun, etc.

There's a very real problem that if one removes "rundown" housing that it usually just removes the cheaper rung of the ladder, making it harder for poor people to live anywhere. Some jurisdictions provide specific programs (vouchers, tax advantages, etc) for providing "low-income" housing to cover this. Some, in particular "champagne socialist" groups, use it to push out undesirables.

> I would argue that providing rental housing to people who can't afford to buy in the area is totally being part of the social safety net.

Then I think landlords should totally get supports, either directly or indirectly. I just don't think a rental unit that's geared to professinals, etc should be part of that.

> Man, landlords (especially ones in "hot" areas) get so many financial advantages. I'm disinterested in giving them more.

I agree with what you're saying. Any new policies should be holistic and take full stock of what rules are already present and replace a lot of bad ones.

> Perhaps this is what you meant by "vouchers", but what if if The State covers the missing part of the tenant's financial obligations to their landlord? If the tenant's fallen on hard times (but is otherwise a fine tenant), why should the landlord care where the money comes from? The problem with "Just go live in public housing" is that in so many places, public housing just doesn't exist.

I meant vouchers or public housing as an example of a long term policy, I don't think it should be a short term solution to sudden rent issues. Taken holistically, temp housing support could happen via unemployment benefits that could take rent into consideration (I'm assuming there's also a good reason the tenant doesn't have savings or can't move in with relatives, etc). The issue is that employment insurance, housing, welfare, etc are often the responsibility of different levels of government, making holistic policies more difficult.

This is basically my experience I wrote about above, the downside risk for mom and pop landlords is way way worse than corp landlords in my experience (and pretty much everyone else I know).

1. New landlords bought a place I was living in and wanted to do in their words "minor upgrades to the house", but during the construction they would "keep it livable" and not require me to move. I came back after work one day to my water being off (and a toilet removed), and they didn't turn it on for two weeks after that (and kept the toilet removed). I had to get a lawyer involved for rent reimbursement.

2. My water heater broke and flooded my house in the middle of the night. The landlord took 1 month to start fixing the completely flooded apartment, and then the landlord tried for a year (threatened legal action as a bluff) to get me to pay for the new water heater despite it being their property, and maintenance being in the lease as their problem. I obv never paid because it was basically just a shakedown.

3. My landlord tried to just not pay me a month of rent owed after they sold the property with me living in it. He called me several times trying to "make a deal", and I told him that it was a cost associated with him selling the house and that I would not leave until he paid me the month owed. He waited until literally the last possible day to pay me and yelled at me on the phone that I was being unfair despite it just being money he owed me.

Every corp landlord I have had has been by the book. Yes my rent has gone up marginally, but at least there is a paper trail and they do not try to do any of the crazy stuff I just described.

That being said, I did have one mom/pop landlord who built me a deck with a bike locker over the course of a summer once, that guy was great.

I would never want to be a renter again, and I also have no interest in becoming a landlord.