If you’re going to resort to obnoxious, poorly-thought-out attacks on other people’s IQ/means/education — rather than making the effort to actually formulate a rational and well-reasoned argument — I am glad to let you know that I am more highly-educated than you are, make more money, have a higher IQ, work in a more competitive profession, and probably have an equivalent knowledge about the costs of home ownership/maintenance and window installation (I have had double-paned windows installed). And I can confirm that you are a poorly-informed troll who is really adding nothing to this discussion.

Yours,
GG

Supply goes down, rents go up.

But using Lillian’s numbers, one quickly sees that $5400 a month is not enough money to properly maintain or improve said building here in SF, let alone gain much if any profit. The monthly mortgage on the building alone is likely to be close to that; higher on more recently purchased buildings, lower on buildings that have been owned for a while. Once you add property taxes, insurance and baseline maintenance costs, profits on such ventures aren’t what many renters assume.

Saving large chunks of money for delayed maintenance on big old buildings isn’t at all easy to do. Fixing seemingly simple issues like new windows can open up giant cans of worms like dry rot and failed electrical. In recent years, getting extra loans for such maintenance has come to a standstill because of resistant banks. Owners who are able to get extra loans are then saddled with new additional monthly loan payments, which put pressure on tenants to pay higher rent.

Many long-standing landlords right now are selling off their failing buildings because the values have gone up so much. The new buyers are people with deep pockets who can sidestep loan issues. With these extremely high purchase prices come new extremely high rents so to cover the monthly payments. It’s happening across the city and notably in the Mission.

I’m not a landlord, and wouldn’t want to be. But I do struggle and work very hard every month to make the payments and maintain the property that I’ve been fortunate to purchase here many years ago.

But I’ll keep going with this debate anways, asshole. Okay, so say all the numbers that have been provided are correct, I’m going to give an example of a friend who does live in a rent controlled apartment. This particular building has 4 separate units. I’ve only seen one unit, and the inside of the kitchen in another, but I’m going to assume the layouts in each are pretty similar based on the number of tenants in each, etc. The unit I’ve seen has two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. The total cost of rent excluding utilities is $1850. With three other units in this building the total rent would add up to around ~$5400 a month. You mentioned windows needing repair referring to the busted windows from the pictures above. I’d figure that those had something to do with the fire, and not windows that were just left like that. But say a window on a building like the one I mentioned my friend living in, ended up busting. If the landlord of that building was truly taking care of their property, you’d think they’d be responsible enough to have the money aside to fix any problems that might occur. On top of that it would makes sense for them to also have money put aside for maintaining things like electricial, plumbing, etc. After putting money aside for those things each month regardless of whether there is a current problem or not, they should still have a decent chunk for profit. Then looking at the amount of time it would takes to check up on a single building you own and making sure everything is right, the landlord would likely have time to work a full time job, or have time to work on more properties. And if something major were to happen, aren’t there loans you can take out or insurance plans that you can pay into to cover these costs? You talk about hard work, but why is it that when the toilet at my friend’s place is having problems, the landlord ignores the problem, leaving the tenants to have to fix it themselves? Is it that they already spent the money they should be using to maintain their property on a fancy dinner on Valencia St?

These were just the numbers and ideas that were floating around in my head when I said that prices seem fair. Granted, yeah I’ve never owned a rental property in my life, and have no experience in doing that, and never will either, so I could be completely wrong by all means. I have aspirations that aren’t business or money. Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t have a problem with those who earn a lot of money, and I don’t doubt that they worked hard to get where they are. However, for some reason or another, you don’t feel the same towards lower income folk. Do you really just think the very people who serve you your food, or work the register at your local hardware store, or even the people who make the music you might love to listen to while at a local bar, or the art you might see in your favorite cafe in town are just society leeches who aren’t working for something beyond what they currently have. What about folks social workers, people who work to help people who need help in life. They work to help those who might not have been as privileged in life have the equal opportunity to possibly have a future as a property owner. They do this kind of work for very little payment. You want to deny these saints from affordable housing?

If affordable rent didn’t exist artists like Carlos Santana might not have been able to make it out of The Mission and into world class fame. Instead they’d be stuck busking outside, making nothing but hippie change. People have dreams that go beyond wealth and fortune, and sometimes that means giving up certain luxuries for a bit and living life like a Gypsy in order to invest in a more valuable future.

Instead of worrying about maximizing profits, maybe have some fucking compassion dude. The world could use more of it, especially from slumlords like yourself.

This disconnect has led many owners to exit the rental business and convert property into TICs or condos. The result is FAR better maintained buildings, seismic updates, and modern plumbing/electrical systems.

If someone owns a building and rents it out to another person, they charge current market price. It doesn’t suddenly become impossible to maintain simply because rents around it skyrocket. When landlords fail to properly maintain buildings they do so out of greed, not poverty.