Interesting alternate reality perspective on the cause of the housing shortage in the Bay Area. The actual reason, is of course rent control. Unsurprisingly developers seems disinclined to build housing and then be forced to rent it for a loss.
The article supports your view if you are looking at how to keep people in existing rent controlled housing. It also supports the ideas that new housing won't be built in rent controlled areas. The $7 billion in savings to the tenants is $7 billion in lost potential revenue to a new landlord. If rent control goes into effect an existing owner can pick up their building and move it outside the rent controlled area. There are lots of big cities where rent controls have limited the construction and upkeep of new and existing housing.
Here is the general problem with rent controls, at first it does what everyone hope, allows people to stay where they are without having to worry about being forced out by people coming in willing and able to pay more.
At some point the people who own the property, can no longer maintain the property. Why, taxes go up, the city rent controls the property but they do not hold taxes at the rate which rent was held at. Cost to maintain go up, the handyman who use to show up for $10 to fix a building issue, now can go down the street and get $100 from the property owner how rented to those who had money to pay more for rent and were kept out of the rent control place. The landlord has a fix revenue coming in, but his cost to maintain are going up, even if rents do go up it never keeps pace with costs. Once people retire and are on fixed incomes, it is next to impossible to raise their rents. Eventually the area of rent controls looks like crap and no one wants to live there. If cost of living around a rent controlled area does not go up much or stays at or below inflation than most time it will be fine. But in California housing cost are increasing double digits every year.
Before you said it does not have to be this way, just look at housing projects big cities build which take the landlord and the desire to make money out of the equation and those places all fall in to disrepair, when the economy tanks, cities do not have the resources to maintain the property and tenants are not working so they stop paying, and you can not evict a pregnant woman.
In typical government fashion, their solution to a problem is far worse than they what they set out to fix. I have not seen a rent solution where everyone wins, someone loose and most times it the property owner, I am not saying that tenant do not loose or are abuse in the process, they have far less to loose in the process.
Sand Hill Property Company sure is pulling out all the stops to spin this as housing. If it is really for housing, then build housing instead of the ruse to build another office park. Sand Hill even created a local fake news website and Facebook page "Cupertino Today" using a San Francisco PR firm to spread misinformation and insult Cupertino residents as NIMBY's. Sand Hill has to push ahead to pay off their Abu Dhabi Sovereign investment fund that is backing the project. Sand Hill is responsible for Sunnyvale Town Center mess too.
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Here is the general problem with rent controls, at first it does what everyone hope, allows people to stay where they are without having to worry about being forced out by people coming in willing and able to pay more.
At some point the people who own the property, can no longer maintain the property. Why, taxes go up, the city rent controls the property but they do not hold taxes at the rate which rent was held at. Cost to maintain go up, the handyman who use to show up for $10 to fix a building issue, now can go down the street and get $100 from the property owner how rented to those who had money to pay more for rent and were kept out of the rent control place. The landlord has a fix revenue coming in, but his cost to maintain are going up, even if rents do go up it never keeps pace with costs. Once people retire and are on fixed incomes, it is next to impossible to raise their rents. Eventually the area of rent controls looks like crap and no one wants to live there. If cost of living around a rent controlled area does not go up much or stays at or below inflation than most time it will be fine. But in California housing cost are increasing double digits every year.
Before you said it does not have to be this way, just look at housing projects big cities build which take the landlord and the desire to make money out of the equation and those places all fall in to disrepair, when the economy tanks, cities do not have the resources to maintain the property and tenants are not working so they stop paying, and you can not evict a pregnant woman.
In typical government fashion, their solution to a problem is far worse than they what they set out to fix. I have not seen a rent solution where everyone wins, someone loose and most times it the property owner, I am not saying that tenant do not loose or are abuse in the process, they have far less to loose in the process.