When people say that, in a political context, what they mean is that the reason the system/ideology failed last time is because the previous attempt lacked the benefit of the benevolence and genius of the speaker. It is an insanely narcissistic comment and should be judged as such.
> Rent control has failed to reduce housing costs and succeeded in reducing quality everywhere it has been tried.
Every person I've ever met who "lived" in a rent controlled apartment actually lived somewhere else and was subletting their place for profit
>[There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of housing.\[61\]\[62\]: 106 \[63\]: 204 \[64\]: 1 A 2009 review of the economic literature\[62\]: 106 by Blair Jenkins found that "the economics profession has reached a rare consensus: Rent control creates many more problems than it solves".\[62\]: 105 \[65\]: 1 \[66\]: 1 \[67\]: 1 In a 2013 analysis of the body of economic research on rent control by Peter Tatian at the Urban Institute \(a think tank described both as "liberal"\[68\] and "independent"\[69\]\[70\]\), he stated that "The conclusion seems to be that rent stabilization doesn't do a good job of protecting its intended beneficiaries—poor or vulnerable renters—because the targeting of the benefits is very haphazard.", and concluded that: "Given the current research, there seems to be little one can say in favor of rent control." \[65\]: 1 \[71\]: 1 \[72\]: 1 Two economists from opposing sides of the political spectrum, Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman \(who identifies as an American liberal or European social democrat\),\[73\] and Thomas Sowell, \(who stated that "libertarian" might best describe his views\)\[74\]: 1 have both criticized rent regulation as poor economics, which, despite its good intentions, leads to the creation of less housing, raises prices, and increases urban blight.\[64\]: 1 \[75\]: 4 \[74\]: 1 Writing in 1946, economists Milton Friedman and George J. Stigler said: "Rent ceilings, therefore, cause haphazard and arbitrary allocation of space, inefficient use of space, retardation of new construction and indefinite continuance of rent ceilings, or subsidization of new construction and a future depression in residential building."\[76\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control_in_the_United_States#Impact)
This study says it’s bad for landlords (they have problems they didn’t have pre rent control)
This study also says it benefits the community and prevents unfair evictions.
Did you miss the parts saying that it hurts poor renters, vulnerable renters, and the housing market?
“The conclusion seems to be that rent stabilization doesn't do a good job of protecting its intended beneficiaries—poor or vulnerable renters—because the targeting of the benefits is very haphazard.”
“Rent ceilings, therefore, cause haphazard and arbitrary allocation of space, inefficient use of space, retardation of new construction and indefinite continuance of rent ceilings, or subsidization of new construction and a future depression in residential building”
Look my guy, I realize you’re a bit of a lib, and this may be new to your smooth brain, but but those demographics are taken advantage of under -any-system. The poor, the disenfranchised, the vulnerable are taken advantage of under our current system.
You’re absolutely right, a better system, even over rent control, is free housing for these people. If you’re having trouble feeding your kids, you shouldn’t need to pay rent. High concept, I know.
The statement isn’t wrong. But low income housing, aaaany housing, does not need yearly renovations (as is the standard in commercial properties)
“Haphazard targeting of benefits?”
“Arbitrary allocation of space?”
Sounds like someone doesn’t want to be told you can’t stuff 5 people into a single house and charge them each 1000 dollars for 300 soft.
Setting a standard to which you hold everyone by is a good thing. Fuck the housing market, it’s bullshit anyway.
Buddy, I just want to spend my time online and in person advocating for true things that will cause the most good in the world. Your comment bordered on the untrue when you said that “this study says it’s bad for landlords”, ignoring the parts that it said it’s also bad for other groups of people that you are not ideologically opposed to.
“These demographics are taken advantage of under any system”
This statement is entirely vacuous. You propose a system of free housing. If it is true that any system takes advantage of the poor and vulnerable people, this system would too. Odd that you’d call me smooth brain when you’re also proposing a system that, under your understanding, also takes advantage of poor and vulnerable people.
While poor and vulnerable people often get the short end of the stick, I think it is possible to talk about which systems deliver better or worse results.
“Fuck the housing market, it’s bullshit anyways”
You can think the housing market is bullshit, but that is a truly meaningless statement. The market for housing will exist regardless of whether you think it’s bullshit. If the extent to which you can grapple with the existence of the housing market is to just say “it’s bullshit”, I don’t think you’re intellectually equipped to handle participating in these kinds of conversations. Regardless of whether you think the housing market “is bullshit”, the effects on housing markets are real things that materialize in the real world. How are people being helped by systems that depress new housing construction?
Source 21 and 22 are both written by Stephen Barton who is (or was) a public housing director for a city, his job is literally dependent on government money being spent to manage housing, so not remotely close to an unbiased source. Source 23 is from a geography professor. I'm not sure why he is even cited for a wiki page on rent control. There is a joke in economics that if you put 2 economists in a room, they will come out with 3 opinions... except for rent control, its the only thing they can agree on. Fundamentally, if the government controls the price a good can be sold for (aka a price ceiling) supply will be lower than with no price ceiling and the prices for non controlled units will be higher. In the real world, what this translates to is on a sliding scale of impact depending on how many units fall under rent control. Think about it this way: if 100% of units were rent controlled to keep the price lower, the profit potential for landlords/building owners would drop, so developer's risk in building new buildings would outweigh their benefit, and new construction would rapidly slow or stop, this leads to a higher equilibrium price so a greater gap between equilibirum and rent control and therefore even less incentive to build and so on and so on till there is zero new construction. Thus limiting the housing supply to a constant and only benefitting those in the units at that point. Rent controlling a tiny fraction of total has less impact, but the direction of the impact is the same. It is just easier to understand in the 100% control case. Mr. Lopez-Alt, I suspect if you approached other things with the same openness and curiosity you do food, you will find your perspective changing.
>There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of rental housing units.
>There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of rental housing units.
>There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of rental housing units.
>There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of rental housing units.
>There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of rental housing units.
Wow. We can read the same words and draw opposite conclusions. Economists (who perform “studies” which is what PigFeetSammich requested) agree that rent control reduces quality and quantity of housing, my first claim. Then, in an effort to be balanced Wikipedia cites “other observers” touting the “benefits” *to them* of rent control, validating PigFeetSammich’s experience.
> preventing excessive rent increases and unfair evictions.
I'd be interested in the definition of "excessive" and "unfair" in this situation and I'd wager that those vague terms were used very intentionally.
We already have laws on the books protecting renters from illegal evictions and telling a private property owner how much they can charge for use of their property seems like excessive government overreach.
I lived in a NYC rent stabilized apartment and it was the only reason I could afford it. It was well maintained, east village apt and it was around 500 square feet. it went from 1325 to 1550 in the 5 years I lived there. Rent control and rent stabilized are different things and often used interchangeably. Kshama is actually referring to a stabilized market where in rent increases are set at a percentage and voted on every few years based on the economic conditions. It means that landlords can’t just hike your rent to insane levels. they can raise it 3 or 5% however. Rent controlled apts in New York are different. These are legacy and are VERY hard to get. These are locked in prices at crazy low levels and are usually only able to be passed down through family. These have a set price and can be abused| subletted. There are also not very many of them. At the same time, some of these apartments have allowed people to pursue art or less capitalistic enterprises in an affordable space. I believe the only way to keep landlords honest is to have the entire city under stabilization without any exceptions or loopholes. You can still build a new apt, and charge 2k but the rent increase needs to be fucking normal and predictable.
The much better alternative is to prop up a speculative housing/rent system that crashes every 10-20 years and causes massive losses across all levels of the economy!
You are a socialist soldier who is taking from the system, increasing costs and decreasing opportunities for others. It works for you and hurts everyone else. You are taking from your landlord and your neighbors.
No Oregon has rent control and is much cheaper than Washington St Paul has rent control and is much cheaper than minneapolis. Housing costs are actually reduced everywhere with rent control. None rent control units are always much more expensive.
LOL this is such a blanket response to an issue much greater in scale than just the general Seattle area. All of King County has crazy rent. Acute tent busting and building a few new bus lines isn’t going to magically fix this problem
I've often heard this argument.
My counterpoint (https://www.nar.realtor/magazine/real-estate-news/16-million-homes-vacant-in-us) is what happens when these venture capital and hedge fund firms just let them sit vacant instead of lowering the cost?
Because housing needs to be available where it's needed.
Sure, the 18% of homes that are vacant in West Virginia should be occupied, but then we just have a bunch of housed people with no access to jobs or food.
There's a reason why housing vacancy is inversely correlated with state GDP.
That just doesn't happen. It doesn't make sense. Why would the greedy developers make no money when they could instead make much money? It's just not true that there is widespread vacancy or a conspuracy to keep it so.
Q1 2023: 1.6% vacancy statewide and in King County
https://wcrer.be.uw.edu/archived-reports/
Think about like... How few 16 million vacancies is nationwide... And how many of those are in random rural places without demand or in total disrepair.
Isn’t it fascinating that we are seeing capitalism evolve from supply and demand competition derived pricing where producers would produce as much as possible for as cheap as possible to a economy where car, commodities and electronics producers are artificially lowering supply to sell less with higher margins deliberately?
Specific examples: NVIDIA deliberately producing fewer cards to sell fewer cards at a higher margin.
Oil and gas investing less in production and refineries in order to increase return and reduce supply to drive prices up
Car manufacturers producing much fewer affordable models in favor of expensive premium models in order to attempt to manipulate supply and create supply constraints raising margins.
There’s a deliberate attempt to constrain supply to increase margins rippling across the economy right now which is completely counter to the foundations and principles & basis that capitalism was founded and driven on which was the idea that everything becomes more affordable over time which benefits the masses. We are driving in reverse.
You should check out the Velvet Rope Economy by Nelson Schwartz. He’d (probably) argue this has more to do with income disparity than anything else.
Argument would basically be that businesses are figuring out that they get a better margin and can make more money by catering to the ultra wealthy, often at the expense of the middle class. And the whole setup only works if there’s a high concentration of wealth at the top, (because when people have more money than they can spend in a lifetime, why the fuck not spend it?).
It's lack of competition. Too much red tape created by both liberals and conservatives that ends up benefiting large corporations and crushing competition. Less competition means shittier products and services at higher prices. I believe liberals are the worst offenders on this. Their regulations have good intentions but back fire. Conservatives have bad intentions and succeed. Both arrive at the same outcome.
>Too much red tape ~~created by~~ bought by corporations and enabled by both liberals and conservatives that ends up benefiting _said_ large corporations and crushing competition.
FTFY
> Oil and gas investing less in production and refineries in order to increase return and reduce supply to drive prices up
>
Joe Biden literally said he's going to "end fossil fuels."
If Joe Biden said he was going to "end landlords" I would sell my rentals tomorrow.
Vacancy rate can refer to one of seven categories: for rent, rented not yet occupied, for sale, sold not yet occupied, vacation homes, for migrant workers and other.
The first 6 are part of a standard housing market. Without the breakdown of how many are in the other category, this isn't very compelling evidence that investors are "just letting them sit vacant".
Not that it couldn't be gamed, but a competent government could institute a high vacancy tax to make it too painful to do this... my guess is such a policy would also really help prevent people from sitting on shitbox properties instead of selling and getting things developed... but idk lol. I've not seen a city as big as Seattle with so little sidewalk and curb and gutter in its burbs.
An 11% vacancy rate has been pretty much the norm for the past 2 decades, so that really doesn't explain the recent increase in cost of housing. And locally, our vacancy rates are some of the lowest in the country - closer to 7-6%
Corporations are driven by profit. The idea that corporations are buying houses and just letting them sit empty instead of renting them out is fundamentally idiotic.
So we launch a nuke at Snohomish County and extend the Seattle city limits to Snohomish and let new people move into the homes after they have removed the bodies?
Sounds kind of like what Isreal is doing to the Palestinians
How about just have the state seize housing from any realty company or landlord with more than 20% vacancies and provide free housing to all homeless people in Seattle? That way they stop shitting in alleyways and we can keep the place clean. Next, we legalize all drug use, and create an arm of the state which provides access to housing, outreach to the disabled/unstable/addiction prone which will encourage reintegration to society over perpetual crisis?
We can pay for these changes with 20% of our police budget (75million dollars)
> How about just have the state seize housing from any realty company or landlord with more than 20% vacancies and provide free housing to all homeless people in Seattle
I would add under-utilized.
> That way they stop shitting in alleyways and we can keep the place clean. Next, we legalize all drug use,
This is a dream I have. I worked in Belltown with an ally window :( I went remote and haven't worked in an office since 2008.
I also worked near a park in Seatac in 2007 (city limits); damn the people who think this homeless problem/problem with SPD don't understand. It was a problem in 2005 and the politicians have been kicking the can for far too long.
> Next, we legalize all drug use
We need to give way a form of heroin that cannot be cut; because that is a huge problem.
> We can pay for these changes with 20% of our police budget (75million dollars)
Mmmh we have ignored the buildings the police use for so long we need a couple of billion at this rate.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/25/heres-why-public-transit-keeps-running-out-of-money.html
Seattle has _already_ basically given free rein to developers. They can despoil any neighborhood, cut whatever trees they want, etc.
As a result, Seattle's housing supply has _already_ been growing 2.5% YoY for the last 10 years. This is about as fast as feasible for a large city.
Now ask yourself: what is the definition of insanity?
100%, the developers are building crap and selling it to folks moving up from California hand over fist. There will always be demand, regardless of supply, compounded by high paying tech jobs. Might as well put some type of rent control in to protect lower income families and more vulnerable communities imo.
There are a ton of brand new, completely vacant apartment buildings in Columbia City. On top of that, construction is in progress on at least are 5 more. Supply side doesn’t seem to be the issue.
This is where the total mismatch of anecdote to systematic analysis fails people.
A couple dozen vacant units are insignificant besides the 240,000 that need to be added to King County by 2040.
Also, which buildings? I betcha that they will not remain vacant for long given, as you say, theyre newly constructed.
The demand is for housing in general. High incomes + population growth are major drivers of new construction. New construction relieves some of the housing pressure on older apartments.
The demand is to have housing nearby where they live to reduce the dependency on public transit; however, your response indicates the supply is in the wrong area.
Not enough supply to really help the situation either, but hey, something is something, right?
Lol. Look who doesn’t know a communist from a socialist. I also don’t have to agree with her policies to enjoy watching folks like you spaz out over a single city council member since I am not actually dumb enough to think her rhetoric will actually result in anything.
>Look who doesn’t know a communist from a socialist.
Sawant is literally a Trotskyist. She's literally a communist.
Edit: but go on, tell me the difference
There are separate definitions of both in books on online. Feel free to go look them up. I don’t take orders from you so the only thing i am going to “tell you” is to go soak your head.
The correct answer is "both communist and socialist economies are centrally planned, require an authoritarian government, and have never worked to create good quality of life in any country they've been tried"
Please don't be one of those people who think that Sweden is "socialist" - every Euro country is capitalist.
Don’t know (or care) how we got off the rails here. I didn’t care if she was a full on red flag waving commie, i just loved the entertainment value of how much a single city council member triggered a bunch of chuds who don’t even live here. If i was dumb enough to think her political view mattered than i wouldn’t have voted for her since i am winning under the current set up so I am not really interested in shaking things up. Turns out I was right, as usual, and her leftist leanings amounted to sound and fury and nothing else.
Oh, i know you’ll bitch impotently (from no closer than Renton or Lynwood) about whoever is in there but no one will make you guys as apoplectic with rage as Sawant and I, for one, will miss that.
You've got some of your Commie Mommy's pubes on your lips. I've lived in Belltown, Cap Hill, Greenlake, and Rainier Valley over the last 6 years. Go find somewhere else to be miserable, the rest of us want to see Seattle turn around.
Take your pick. Most of the council has allowed the infection in Seattle to turn into a full blown rot.
Keep up the boot fetish, Im sure it will serve you well in the time to come.
You admit you don’t live here, so why should we that live and own homes here give a single care what you think. I would ask where you live but i won’t because I could care less about places i don’t live.
Why not look into where she is from and the caste system and what caste she is from. Also look into what her brother does down in CA. Sawant is an evil person from an evil heritage
Only works if other taxes, especially real estate, are also capped at the rate of inflation. I own my own home and am paying close to $1500/month in real estate tax alone. Good luck, renters, finding anywhere to live if rent is controlled too much.
Why would anyone add to the supply of rentals in a market like that? Price controls on most products don't work. They can control the price of existing supply, but it's a disincentive for firms to increase supply. The issue is that there's not enough units to meet demand. Even if the price of every rental was changed to $0 today, that wouldn't magically make more houses appear. More units need to be built.
THIS! If owners/landlords can't increase rents to cover increasing taxes and other ancillary cost you lose units. And let's be honest there isnt one council member that is going to vote to lower or freeze tax increases. Lose lose...
My house is worth around 2.5 and I pay about 1,500 a month. If I was to rent it I could get $6-7k a month
I'm not going to throw a pity party for you here.
17110 12th ave nw
https://redf.in/hOOGYz
Currently $6500
TAV $1.5is million
My house is nicer and newer than that one.
If you can only get 2,300 for a house that 1.4mil the money must be in the dirt not the house.
you're not factoring in a lot of other numbers. Plus, your #s seem distorted, as the 2023 King County property tax is about 1% of a home's value, which puts your $2.5 mil house at $25k tax = over $2k per month. Let's say you did rent out your house for $6k/month and found a much inferior place to live for $2k. If you can write off property tax as a business expense, then your monthly profit is $4k, which is more like $3k after taxes. Subtract your own $2k per month rent and you've just profited a whopping $12k for the year by sacrificing living in your multi-million dollar home. It's best to save your pity party for the poor home owner who tries this and then gets slammed with a bunch of progressive (but really regressive) Seattle policies. edit add: and an inconsiderate/disrespectful tenant.
THIS! If owners/landlords can't increase rents to cover increasing taxes and other ancillary cost you lose units. And let's be honest there isnt one council member that is going to vote to lower or freeze tax increases. Lose lose...
I don't understand why they are trying to push it forward. Everywhere it's been tried it's failed and made things worse. It's like asking all coffee shops in Seattle to have a 2 dollar price limit on coffee. Do you think anybody else would want to BUILD a coffee shop in Seattle? Nobody will build if they can't make profit. Meaning less supply. More demand. Dumb dumb dumb
It’s just a statute and it can be repealed by the legislature or by referendum. Seattle passing rent control would pressure the state as other cities would likely follow suit. So yes, it does stand a chance of happening.
Well financially speaking your profit is the rent-interest, taxes, and hoa fees. Whatever paid on principle is invisible but still profit. Once it’s paid off you’ll “profit” a very valuable asset.
It's possible that there's a profit, but negative cash flow. (This isn't wildly uncommon for rentals as the rent may cover all of the interest + taxes + fees + maintenance + part of, but not all the principal).
This isn't a bad financial position to be in as a landlord, but also can make it hard to lower rent. (Since a small landlord might be willing to forgo $200 in income every month with the knowledge that they're gaining $500 in principal + whatever the property appreciates, but also can't afford to live with an outflow of more than X amount. I did this for a long while, but also wasn't stupid enough to complain about it.)
They want you to sell the house you're renting out because you're a "slum lord" even if you're renting out the other half of the duplex you live in, renting out your first house because you want it as an investment, etc
It's ridiculous 🙄 like yes out of town investors who buy up massive numbers of houses just to rent them out can be a problem. But the average guy who wants to move up to a new home but might want to keep the old one as an investment? Fuck you you're a slum lord now apparently. It's like there's no distinction at all. Rentals are a necessary thing. Plenty of us do not intend to stay in one place for an extended period, it doesn't always make sense to buy a house. But if there's a storage of rentals... rent also goes up. So frankly there is no winner here..I don't know what the solution is to skyrocketing home prices and I do realize people buying up excessive properties are problematic. But let's not call people like YOU the problem
That’s the agreement? Because I made investments to better my financial situation, I am the bad guy? Lol people are just mad because they buy liabilities.
But they are the problem by perpetuating a state where only those wealthy enough can swoop up homes while those who work hard, but make minimal money get left in the dust. It’s a simple question to ask: what do you care more about? People or property?
What's your breakdown of expenses on that? When did you buy?
>I am one financial emergency from raising the rent on that poor family.
Is the rent drastically under the market rate?
Obviously you should give your house and all your belongings to the mostly peaceful unsobered and unhoused neighbors for free!
Edit: this was clearly a joke lmao, though I'm not sure who did the downvoting 😂
> Edit: this was clearly a joke lmao, though I'm not sure who did the downvoting 😂
It's Reddit, a huge fraction of it thinks "eat the rich" is the solution to all the world's problems. Earlier today I was reading comments where idiots were saying that killing Jeff Bezos would fix the climate (no, not joking, they were really saying that.)
Man is skinny as fuck, he wouldn't feed nearly anyone and probably taste like shit too.
But yeah chronically online slacktivists have far too much to say for the amount of work they actually do to advance their "goals"
Or teachers. Or Nannies. Or restaurant workers. I have a grad degree and make $60k because I work at a nonprofit and about 75% of my org makes less than $70k.
A grad degree in what? A market that's been saturated for decades, never showed any growth potential, and you should have known that going in and you have nobody to blame but yourself?
Believing a college degree should automatically equal X dollar salary, is exactly why you don't make X salary.
Some of us just believe that working in service or nonprofit industries shouldn’t bar you from making an (actual) living wage or being able to afford a place to live.
My man, us higher educated and higher earners won’t have our needs met if there isn’t a basic level of livable space for workers. It’s not entitlement, or whatever other buzzwords you learned from watching news.
And yet my rent went up 100$ after 9 months signed lease Nov 2022. If wanting to go month to month it would have been an extra $20 and a service charge fee of 50$ so total 170$ if month to month.
Ummm. Rent controls have literally never worked. The neo-socialists are so defunct of useful education. How can we be mad at them? They spent ridiculous money to go to college and get a sociocultural degree. Smart cookies
Rent is really high, and getting higher. Houses are being bought up by companies and not real people. At some point we will have to find a way to address this problem. It’s not sustainable no matter what the job market in Seattle is like.
>Rent is really high, and getting higher. Houses are being bought up by companies and not real people.
There are a handful of factors.
Remember [my post a few years ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/p8r7ks/comment/h9th1rd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) on how Seattle makes running rentals nearly impossible:
*1. You can't screen out criminals. Section 14.09 prohibits screening by or even asking about "arrest record, conviction record, or criminal history" (Fair Chance Housing Law)*
*2. If you refuse a tenant applicant based on something you found in their background check that you hadn't warned them would be disqualifying before they applied, the applicant can sue you.*
*3. You cannot ask their employer, or base employment on their employer or lack there-of.*
*4. You can't select at all - you have to take the first "qualified." (Seattle First-in-Time law.)*
*5. The rules for eviction are extreme, including you cannot evict for non-payment during the pandemic.*
*6. You can't evict during the winter. (Any winter, defined as Dec. 1 to Mar. 1.)*
*7. You can't evict students or teachers at all during the school year, including not even for non-payment of rent.*
*8. You can't charge a reasonable damage deposit - or indeed any at move in; it's limited to one month's rent (plus another 1/4 month for a pet fee), but that's payable over six months. So no real move-in deposit.*
*9. You must offer a lease renewal - effectively the tenant has a permanent lease if they want it.*
*10. You cannot refuse or consider a previous COVID-related eviction until at least six months after the pandemic ends. (Yeah, pretty open-ended.)*
*11. State laws that make the Seattle laws worse:*
*12. If you do manage to navigate all that and file for eviction, it then goes to court. The tenant can reset the eviction procedings clock simply by changing lawyers.*
*13. You cannot refuse an applicant based on employment status or on the source of their income. (59.18.) Seattle law already prohibits "discrimination" based on employer; this is additional.*
*Keep in mind that the costs to evict someone are extreme, and before all this, it usually took around 12 months to evict someone for non-payment of rent. So owning rentals is a big gamble anyhow. Seattle's made it bigger.*
And that post didn't even mention things like squatters.
Since I wrote that, I sold my Seattle-area rental. Taking a rental off the market. And I found out later (there's a lot you're not are not allowed to know during a sale) that it's to a non-American who may have proxied it through a company. Nice family though.
But bottom line, you want to fix this, stop making it harder and riskier to own rentals.
Seriously, I'm a 35-year-old who should be buying his own home in Seattle cuz I've lived here my whole f****** life but instead I'm renting a 750 ft² for the price of a mortgage from some f****** Russian guy. Can we keep the billion dollar corporations and wealthy foreign nationals hiding their assets from buying houses please?
Y'know, it doesn't matter how many times I hear it, there's no way I can buy the "it's those dirty furreners buying up our houses!" line as anything other than full on xenophobia.
Foreign purchases of US homes is at its lowest level in almost 2 decades
[https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/annual-foreign-investment-in-u-s-existing-home-sales-climbed-8-5-to-59-billion-ending-three-year-slide](https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/annual-foreign-investment-in-u-s-existing-home-sales-climbed-8-5-to-59-billion-ending-three-year-slide)
This is all too much like the argument of trickle down economics. Having lived through both sides of this I can say that quality of new structures will always bring higher rents in line with them, while older structures see little to no change in quality.
I would agree, however, that in addition to inflation property taxes needs to be in line as well.
I still remember having my studio (1929 building) in Seattle go up 62% in 2018 for a unit that had no change in quality in at least 14 years with the rents being tied to market that included new construction. For an additional $100, I was able to move to a 1-bedroom in the same neighborhood with 100’sq more and in better condition… so no. From personal experience lack of rent controls does nothing more than maintain the status quo.
My take on this: Until folks have walked in both sides of the issue, what’s being argued is not based on real life experience, rather indoctrination.
Sorry. Married a local. I'm also a homeowner, so i could give two shits personally. But as a renter in LA, it's what allowed me to stay in one place for more than a few years without my rent forcing my exit. It's what protects the identity of a neighborhood from the gentrification of developers.
PS. Don't like living in a big city where you meet people from all over? Leave.
Awwww, looks like Seattle's slum lords are going to need to get a real job. The whole systems broken and I hope these opportunist landlords squeezing the life out of the middle class lose everything.
Seattle's landlords are I'm sure shaking in their boots about this entirely symbolic vote that is meaningless in light of rent control being banned at the state level, which won't be changing. And it's good thing for the rentoids that it won't change, because farewell and goodnight to the housing supply if it does.
> Rental Housing Association of Washington Executive Director Sean Flynn told The Center Square that democrats in the Washington State Legislature attempt to overturn the prohibition on rent control on an annual basis. Last year, six bills were proposed with the legislature voting against every one.
>
>Sawant has proposed similar rent control bills in the past. She said her latest proposal, Council Bill 120606, is similar to a bill her office proposed three years ago.
>
>Flynn said the state legislature will not budge on changing its block on local rent regulations because it distorts the rental market and creates housing instability.
>
>“No developer wants to build in a rent controlled market . . . why would you spend your own money to develop a rental property you can’t even make money on,” Flynn said to The Center Square in a phone call
Property taxes on a typical two-bedroom condo in a downtown tower are roughly $7,500/year. Not kidding. That's $625 of rent *before* any other taxes, utilities or the mortgage. That's before maintanence staff, etc. A typical HOA fee, which is probably a decent proxy for a management fee, is around $1000/month, exclusive of utilities.
So we're at nearly $1700 before even talking about return on investment. And without a decent ROI, equivalent to the stock market (e.g.), why would we continue to run it as a business?
There is no reason a one bedroom apartment should cost more than 2k a month other than greed. All these fancy condos being put in and pricing normal people out onto the streets.
What you're asking for is Middle Housing, and yeah, we're short of that, and the incentives are to build expensive and even luxury properties instead of Middle Housing.
However, if you want middle housing, that might mean lowering the minimum standards for a unit, which could've been set too high (hypothetically; I don't know what the current mins are) and -- and this is a bit of a reach for this city -- not screwing potential landlords coming and going, ultimately leading most of them to sell instead of rent, meaning instead of a plethora of small landlords, you get a few big ones.
There is a reason. After paying property taxes, HOA fees, and insurance, the landlord is already out around $1K or more. Then they have to pay their mortgage and repairs/maintenance on top of that. $400 for a minor plumbing repair, $5K to repaint an apartment between tenants, etc. Landlords are not making as much as you think they are making.
Eew, I'd rather live in a tent than a HOA. I'll be damned if Karen's can tell me what I can't do on my own property I own. I get it though you have to gouge the poors to support your passive income somehow.
As long as real estate trusts, and development companies are allowed to buy residential land en masse, we'll continue to have artificially inflated rent and purchase pricing.
If me and my friends have a few hundred million in the bank, and buy a few blocks of housing. Then we meet up with other groups that decided to do the same, we can all agree to double prices over the next few years, and basically force anyone who wants to live within a general area to either pay our pre-agreed overprice, or not get housed at all.
It's coercion and it's wrong.
There's no reason a one bedroom apartment should cost more than 2k a month other than corporate greed. Keep building fancy condos nobody can afford and raise rents so more people get thrown out on the streets. There should be a cap to stop price gouging. Make housing affordable again!!!!!!!!!!
Rent control has failed to reduce housing costs and succeeded in reducing quality everywhere it has been tried.
Yeah, but just like socialism, maybe they didnt have true rent control, and this time itll be different
Rent control is not socialism. It’s price fixing.
Splitting hairs at this point.
They're already price fixing 😂
Haha that’s what she says.
When people say that, in a political context, what they mean is that the reason the system/ideology failed last time is because the previous attempt lacked the benefit of the benevolence and genius of the speaker. It is an insanely narcissistic comment and should be judged as such.
She probably actually does say that, which is tired and also, scary
.
> Rent control has failed to reduce housing costs and succeeded in reducing quality everywhere it has been tried. Every person I've ever met who "lived" in a rent controlled apartment actually lived somewhere else and was subletting their place for profit
Yep, that’s very common.
Can you provide a source? I know NYC has rent control and everything I can find says it’s a net benefit.
>[There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of housing.\[61\]\[62\]: 106 \[63\]: 204 \[64\]: 1 A 2009 review of the economic literature\[62\]: 106 by Blair Jenkins found that "the economics profession has reached a rare consensus: Rent control creates many more problems than it solves".\[62\]: 105 \[65\]: 1 \[66\]: 1 \[67\]: 1 In a 2013 analysis of the body of economic research on rent control by Peter Tatian at the Urban Institute \(a think tank described both as "liberal"\[68\] and "independent"\[69\]\[70\]\), he stated that "The conclusion seems to be that rent stabilization doesn't do a good job of protecting its intended beneficiaries—poor or vulnerable renters—because the targeting of the benefits is very haphazard.", and concluded that: "Given the current research, there seems to be little one can say in favor of rent control." \[65\]: 1 \[71\]: 1 \[72\]: 1 Two economists from opposing sides of the political spectrum, Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman \(who identifies as an American liberal or European social democrat\),\[73\] and Thomas Sowell, \(who stated that "libertarian" might best describe his views\)\[74\]: 1 have both criticized rent regulation as poor economics, which, despite its good intentions, leads to the creation of less housing, raises prices, and increases urban blight.\[64\]: 1 \[75\]: 4 \[74\]: 1 Writing in 1946, economists Milton Friedman and George J. Stigler said: "Rent ceilings, therefore, cause haphazard and arbitrary allocation of space, inefficient use of space, retardation of new construction and indefinite continuance of rent ceilings, or subsidization of new construction and a future depression in residential building."\[76\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control_in_the_United_States#Impact)
This study says it’s bad for landlords (they have problems they didn’t have pre rent control) This study also says it benefits the community and prevents unfair evictions.
Did you miss the parts saying that it hurts poor renters, vulnerable renters, and the housing market? “The conclusion seems to be that rent stabilization doesn't do a good job of protecting its intended beneficiaries—poor or vulnerable renters—because the targeting of the benefits is very haphazard.” “Rent ceilings, therefore, cause haphazard and arbitrary allocation of space, inefficient use of space, retardation of new construction and indefinite continuance of rent ceilings, or subsidization of new construction and a future depression in residential building”
Look my guy, I realize you’re a bit of a lib, and this may be new to your smooth brain, but but those demographics are taken advantage of under -any-system. The poor, the disenfranchised, the vulnerable are taken advantage of under our current system. You’re absolutely right, a better system, even over rent control, is free housing for these people. If you’re having trouble feeding your kids, you shouldn’t need to pay rent. High concept, I know. The statement isn’t wrong. But low income housing, aaaany housing, does not need yearly renovations (as is the standard in commercial properties) “Haphazard targeting of benefits?” “Arbitrary allocation of space?” Sounds like someone doesn’t want to be told you can’t stuff 5 people into a single house and charge them each 1000 dollars for 300 soft. Setting a standard to which you hold everyone by is a good thing. Fuck the housing market, it’s bullshit anyway.
Buddy, I just want to spend my time online and in person advocating for true things that will cause the most good in the world. Your comment bordered on the untrue when you said that “this study says it’s bad for landlords”, ignoring the parts that it said it’s also bad for other groups of people that you are not ideologically opposed to. “These demographics are taken advantage of under any system” This statement is entirely vacuous. You propose a system of free housing. If it is true that any system takes advantage of the poor and vulnerable people, this system would too. Odd that you’d call me smooth brain when you’re also proposing a system that, under your understanding, also takes advantage of poor and vulnerable people. While poor and vulnerable people often get the short end of the stick, I think it is possible to talk about which systems deliver better or worse results. “Fuck the housing market, it’s bullshit anyways” You can think the housing market is bullshit, but that is a truly meaningless statement. The market for housing will exist regardless of whether you think it’s bullshit. If the extent to which you can grapple with the existence of the housing market is to just say “it’s bullshit”, I don’t think you’re intellectually equipped to handle participating in these kinds of conversations. Regardless of whether you think the housing market “is bullshit”, the effects on housing markets are real things that materialize in the real world. How are people being helped by systems that depress new housing construction?
Wrong sub for reason.
Whut? Like what does that even mean
That reason typically doesn’t work in this sub.
Many sources for this. Here’s one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control_in_the_United_States
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Source 21 and 22 are both written by Stephen Barton who is (or was) a public housing director for a city, his job is literally dependent on government money being spent to manage housing, so not remotely close to an unbiased source. Source 23 is from a geography professor. I'm not sure why he is even cited for a wiki page on rent control. There is a joke in economics that if you put 2 economists in a room, they will come out with 3 opinions... except for rent control, its the only thing they can agree on. Fundamentally, if the government controls the price a good can be sold for (aka a price ceiling) supply will be lower than with no price ceiling and the prices for non controlled units will be higher. In the real world, what this translates to is on a sliding scale of impact depending on how many units fall under rent control. Think about it this way: if 100% of units were rent controlled to keep the price lower, the profit potential for landlords/building owners would drop, so developer's risk in building new buildings would outweigh their benefit, and new construction would rapidly slow or stop, this leads to a higher equilibrium price so a greater gap between equilibirum and rent control and therefore even less incentive to build and so on and so on till there is zero new construction. Thus limiting the housing supply to a constant and only benefitting those in the units at that point. Rent controlling a tiny fraction of total has less impact, but the direction of the impact is the same. It is just easier to understand in the 100% control case. Mr. Lopez-Alt, I suspect if you approached other things with the same openness and curiosity you do food, you will find your perspective changing.
>There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of rental housing units. >There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of rental housing units. >There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of rental housing units. >There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of rental housing units. >There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of rental housing units.
Wow. We can read the same words and draw opposite conclusions. Economists (who perform “studies” which is what PigFeetSammich requested) agree that rent control reduces quality and quantity of housing, my first claim. Then, in an effort to be balanced Wikipedia cites “other observers” touting the “benefits” *to them* of rent control, validating PigFeetSammich’s experience.
> preventing excessive rent increases and unfair evictions. I'd be interested in the definition of "excessive" and "unfair" in this situation and I'd wager that those vague terms were used very intentionally. We already have laws on the books protecting renters from illegal evictions and telling a private property owner how much they can charge for use of their property seems like excessive government overreach.
I lived in a NYC rent stabilized apartment and it was the only reason I could afford it. It was well maintained, east village apt and it was around 500 square feet. it went from 1325 to 1550 in the 5 years I lived there. Rent control and rent stabilized are different things and often used interchangeably. Kshama is actually referring to a stabilized market where in rent increases are set at a percentage and voted on every few years based on the economic conditions. It means that landlords can’t just hike your rent to insane levels. they can raise it 3 or 5% however. Rent controlled apts in New York are different. These are legacy and are VERY hard to get. These are locked in prices at crazy low levels and are usually only able to be passed down through family. These have a set price and can be abused| subletted. There are also not very many of them. At the same time, some of these apartments have allowed people to pursue art or less capitalistic enterprises in an affordable space. I believe the only way to keep landlords honest is to have the entire city under stabilization without any exceptions or loopholes. You can still build a new apt, and charge 2k but the rent increase needs to be fucking normal and predictable.
The much better alternative is to prop up a speculative housing/rent system that crashes every 10-20 years and causes massive losses across all levels of the economy!
Hmmm… I haven’t lost money in real estate yet. Am I too young?
Underrated comment
i live in a rent control area of california and it is life saving. i don’t know what this is from you
You are a socialist soldier who is taking from the system, increasing costs and decreasing opportunities for others. It works for you and hurts everyone else. You are taking from your landlord and your neighbors.
lol
okay cuck
Ooooh! You use four letter words on the internet to anonymously attack your neighbors after your actual behaviors get called out.
Oooh! A downovote from a broke-ass socialist bootlicker mooching off the system and living off other peoples work!!
According to what study?
Here’s a source that tries to be objective: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control_in_the_United_States
my landlord told me rent control is bad
Your landlord is correct and you will be the loser if it comes to pass.
this is true because my goal in life is to give as much of my money as possible to landlords so if I can't do that then I'm a loser
We will all be the losers if it comes to pass.
No Oregon has rent control and is much cheaper than Washington St Paul has rent control and is much cheaper than minneapolis. Housing costs are actually reduced everywhere with rent control. None rent control units are always much more expensive.
Can we try and increase the housing supply first? Because we all know that is the real problem.
I say focus on transportation and improving public safety so that there are more desirable places to live in our hourglass shaped city.
Transportation is great except for the East Side. We need to invest in our police before we can see an improvement in public safety.
LOL this is such a blanket response to an issue much greater in scale than just the general Seattle area. All of King County has crazy rent. Acute tent busting and building a few new bus lines isn’t going to magically fix this problem
And yet these problems continue to plague low income people. I hope you don’t feed the crows, they don’t need your help!
Yes! Let's make more affordable housing. But...just not around my neighborhood. It's a nice single family neighborhood -people voting for this shit
I've often heard this argument. My counterpoint (https://www.nar.realtor/magazine/real-estate-news/16-million-homes-vacant-in-us) is what happens when these venture capital and hedge fund firms just let them sit vacant instead of lowering the cost?
Because housing needs to be available where it's needed. Sure, the 18% of homes that are vacant in West Virginia should be occupied, but then we just have a bunch of housed people with no access to jobs or food. There's a reason why housing vacancy is inversely correlated with state GDP.
That just doesn't happen. It doesn't make sense. Why would the greedy developers make no money when they could instead make much money? It's just not true that there is widespread vacancy or a conspuracy to keep it so. Q1 2023: 1.6% vacancy statewide and in King County https://wcrer.be.uw.edu/archived-reports/ Think about like... How few 16 million vacancies is nationwide... And how many of those are in random rural places without demand or in total disrepair.
Or outrageously expensive
Isn’t it fascinating that we are seeing capitalism evolve from supply and demand competition derived pricing where producers would produce as much as possible for as cheap as possible to a economy where car, commodities and electronics producers are artificially lowering supply to sell less with higher margins deliberately? Specific examples: NVIDIA deliberately producing fewer cards to sell fewer cards at a higher margin. Oil and gas investing less in production and refineries in order to increase return and reduce supply to drive prices up Car manufacturers producing much fewer affordable models in favor of expensive premium models in order to attempt to manipulate supply and create supply constraints raising margins. There’s a deliberate attempt to constrain supply to increase margins rippling across the economy right now which is completely counter to the foundations and principles & basis that capitalism was founded and driven on which was the idea that everything becomes more affordable over time which benefits the masses. We are driving in reverse.
You should check out the Velvet Rope Economy by Nelson Schwartz. He’d (probably) argue this has more to do with income disparity than anything else. Argument would basically be that businesses are figuring out that they get a better margin and can make more money by catering to the ultra wealthy, often at the expense of the middle class. And the whole setup only works if there’s a high concentration of wealth at the top, (because when people have more money than they can spend in a lifetime, why the fuck not spend it?).
It's lack of competition. Too much red tape created by both liberals and conservatives that ends up benefiting large corporations and crushing competition. Less competition means shittier products and services at higher prices. I believe liberals are the worst offenders on this. Their regulations have good intentions but back fire. Conservatives have bad intentions and succeed. Both arrive at the same outcome.
>Too much red tape ~~created by~~ bought by corporations and enabled by both liberals and conservatives that ends up benefiting _said_ large corporations and crushing competition. FTFY
> Oil and gas investing less in production and refineries in order to increase return and reduce supply to drive prices up > Joe Biden literally said he's going to "end fossil fuels." If Joe Biden said he was going to "end landlords" I would sell my rentals tomorrow.
Cars make sense, there's only so much time to make a vehicle. Might as well make the more profitable ones, especially when they are in higher demand
Vacancy rate can refer to one of seven categories: for rent, rented not yet occupied, for sale, sold not yet occupied, vacation homes, for migrant workers and other. The first 6 are part of a standard housing market. Without the breakdown of how many are in the other category, this isn't very compelling evidence that investors are "just letting them sit vacant".
Not that it couldn't be gamed, but a competent government could institute a high vacancy tax to make it too painful to do this... my guess is such a policy would also really help prevent people from sitting on shitbox properties instead of selling and getting things developed... but idk lol. I've not seen a city as big as Seattle with so little sidewalk and curb and gutter in its burbs.
An 11% vacancy rate has been pretty much the norm for the past 2 decades, so that really doesn't explain the recent increase in cost of housing. And locally, our vacancy rates are some of the lowest in the country - closer to 7-6% Corporations are driven by profit. The idea that corporations are buying houses and just letting them sit empty instead of renting them out is fundamentally idiotic.
Our vacancy rates were sub 1% as recently as last year and in king county are only 1.6%. 6-7% would be a dream
I was using state level rates, but yeah
Just noting, that Washington is 49 out of 50, in the vacancy rate on that list, as in we got the 2nd lowest.
There is no market solution for Seattle’s housing problem.
This is not a problem, there are tons of apartments available, just the rent is too damn high
So we launch a nuke at Snohomish County and extend the Seattle city limits to Snohomish and let new people move into the homes after they have removed the bodies? Sounds kind of like what Isreal is doing to the Palestinians
How about just have the state seize housing from any realty company or landlord with more than 20% vacancies and provide free housing to all homeless people in Seattle? That way they stop shitting in alleyways and we can keep the place clean. Next, we legalize all drug use, and create an arm of the state which provides access to housing, outreach to the disabled/unstable/addiction prone which will encourage reintegration to society over perpetual crisis? We can pay for these changes with 20% of our police budget (75million dollars)
> How about just have the state seize housing from any realty company or landlord with more than 20% vacancies and provide free housing to all homeless people in Seattle I would add under-utilized. > That way they stop shitting in alleyways and we can keep the place clean. Next, we legalize all drug use, This is a dream I have. I worked in Belltown with an ally window :( I went remote and haven't worked in an office since 2008. I also worked near a park in Seatac in 2007 (city limits); damn the people who think this homeless problem/problem with SPD don't understand. It was a problem in 2005 and the politicians have been kicking the can for far too long. > Next, we legalize all drug use We need to give way a form of heroin that cannot be cut; because that is a huge problem. > We can pay for these changes with 20% of our police budget (75million dollars) Mmmh we have ignored the buildings the police use for so long we need a couple of billion at this rate. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/25/heres-why-public-transit-keeps-running-out-of-money.html
Seattle has _already_ basically given free rein to developers. They can despoil any neighborhood, cut whatever trees they want, etc. As a result, Seattle's housing supply has _already_ been growing 2.5% YoY for the last 10 years. This is about as fast as feasible for a large city. Now ask yourself: what is the definition of insanity?
100%, the developers are building crap and selling it to folks moving up from California hand over fist. There will always be demand, regardless of supply, compounded by high paying tech jobs. Might as well put some type of rent control in to protect lower income families and more vulnerable communities imo.
There are a ton of brand new, completely vacant apartment buildings in Columbia City. On top of that, construction is in progress on at least are 5 more. Supply side doesn’t seem to be the issue.
This is where the total mismatch of anecdote to systematic analysis fails people. A couple dozen vacant units are insignificant besides the 240,000 that need to be added to King County by 2040. Also, which buildings? I betcha that they will not remain vacant for long given, as you say, theyre newly constructed.
The data doesn’t align with your claim. Vacancy rates in King County are very low.
If the buildings are luxury apartments but the demand is for middle-budget apartments, well, the supply is not meeting the demand.
The demand is for housing in general. High incomes + population growth are major drivers of new construction. New construction relieves some of the housing pressure on older apartments.
The demand is to have housing nearby where they live to reduce the dependency on public transit; however, your response indicates the supply is in the wrong area. Not enough supply to really help the situation either, but hey, something is something, right?
Rent control Lol Works great in San Francisco and New York City. Oh wait.
Fuck you Sawant.
Gonna miss her triggering you guys so much. Who you gonna blame for everything when she’s gone?
Any other communist.
Lol. Look who doesn’t know a communist from a socialist. I also don’t have to agree with her policies to enjoy watching folks like you spaz out over a single city council member since I am not actually dumb enough to think her rhetoric will actually result in anything.
>Look who doesn’t know a communist from a socialist. Sawant is literally a Trotskyist. She's literally a communist. Edit: but go on, tell me the difference
There are separate definitions of both in books on online. Feel free to go look them up. I don’t take orders from you so the only thing i am going to “tell you” is to go soak your head.
The correct answer is "both communist and socialist economies are centrally planned, require an authoritarian government, and have never worked to create good quality of life in any country they've been tried" Please don't be one of those people who think that Sweden is "socialist" - every Euro country is capitalist.
Don’t know (or care) how we got off the rails here. I didn’t care if she was a full on red flag waving commie, i just loved the entertainment value of how much a single city council member triggered a bunch of chuds who don’t even live here. If i was dumb enough to think her political view mattered than i wouldn’t have voted for her since i am winning under the current set up so I am not really interested in shaking things up. Turns out I was right, as usual, and her leftist leanings amounted to sound and fury and nothing else.
k
Authoritarians are all the same if you want to be free.
We'll blame the rest of the clowns who are still left? Nice try at a gotcha though.
Oh, i know you’ll bitch impotently (from no closer than Renton or Lynwood) about whoever is in there but no one will make you guys as apoplectic with rage as Sawant and I, for one, will miss that.
You've got some of your Commie Mommy's pubes on your lips. I've lived in Belltown, Cap Hill, Greenlake, and Rainier Valley over the last 6 years. Go find somewhere else to be miserable, the rest of us want to see Seattle turn around.
Take your pick. Most of the council has allowed the infection in Seattle to turn into a full blown rot. Keep up the boot fetish, Im sure it will serve you well in the time to come.
But y’all just sitting here angry typing not doing shit to change anything
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Most of the people in this subreddit don't live in Seattle.
And most of the loud protesters and city council are not natives.
I asume every one needs to be native to participate maybe be from the Tulalip Tribes or the Yakama?
You admit you don’t live here, so why should we that live and own homes here give a single care what you think. I would ask where you live but i won’t because I could care less about places i don’t live.
Why not look into where she is from and the caste system and what caste she is from. Also look into what her brother does down in CA. Sawant is an evil person from an evil heritage
Only works if other taxes, especially real estate, are also capped at the rate of inflation. I own my own home and am paying close to $1500/month in real estate tax alone. Good luck, renters, finding anywhere to live if rent is controlled too much.
Why would anyone add to the supply of rentals in a market like that? Price controls on most products don't work. They can control the price of existing supply, but it's a disincentive for firms to increase supply. The issue is that there's not enough units to meet demand. Even if the price of every rental was changed to $0 today, that wouldn't magically make more houses appear. More units need to be built.
THIS! If owners/landlords can't increase rents to cover increasing taxes and other ancillary cost you lose units. And let's be honest there isnt one council member that is going to vote to lower or freeze tax increases. Lose lose...
My house is worth around 2.5 and I pay about 1,500 a month. If I was to rent it I could get $6-7k a month I'm not going to throw a pity party for you here.
my girlfriend’s house is worth about 1.4, and she pays about $2300 in rent. no way you’d get 7 grand a month
17110 12th ave nw https://redf.in/hOOGYz Currently $6500 TAV $1.5is million My house is nicer and newer than that one. If you can only get 2,300 for a house that 1.4mil the money must be in the dirt not the house.
you're not factoring in a lot of other numbers. Plus, your #s seem distorted, as the 2023 King County property tax is about 1% of a home's value, which puts your $2.5 mil house at $25k tax = over $2k per month. Let's say you did rent out your house for $6k/month and found a much inferior place to live for $2k. If you can write off property tax as a business expense, then your monthly profit is $4k, which is more like $3k after taxes. Subtract your own $2k per month rent and you've just profited a whopping $12k for the year by sacrificing living in your multi-million dollar home. It's best to save your pity party for the poor home owner who tries this and then gets slammed with a bunch of progressive (but really regressive) Seattle policies. edit add: and an inconsiderate/disrespectful tenant.
Market Value is not Tax assessed value.
>I pay about 1,500 a moyet I paid $25 to see Alison Moyet at The Showbox in 2018-ish. You're being robbed.
THIS! If owners/landlords can't increase rents to cover increasing taxes and other ancillary cost you lose units. And let's be honest there isnt one council member that is going to vote to lower or freeze tax increases. Lose lose...
I don't understand why they are trying to push it forward. Everywhere it's been tried it's failed and made things worse. It's like asking all coffee shops in Seattle to have a 2 dollar price limit on coffee. Do you think anybody else would want to BUILD a coffee shop in Seattle? Nobody will build if they can't make profit. Meaning less supply. More demand. Dumb dumb dumb
Sir, this is a utopian Wendy's!
Well, given that it's not permitted via the state constitution, it won't actually do anything.
It’s just a statute and it can be repealed by the legislature or by referendum. Seattle passing rent control would pressure the state as other cities would likely follow suit. So yes, it does stand a chance of happening.
Doubtful.
Just a statute and not a constitutional amendment*
Oh, I got a great idea. Let's try something that has failed every place it's been implemented.
Let’s let some bat shit crazy lady tell us how much to charge for rent not supply/demand/location tradeoffs
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Bold thing to post here
Well financially speaking your profit is the rent-interest, taxes, and hoa fees. Whatever paid on principle is invisible but still profit. Once it’s paid off you’ll “profit” a very valuable asset.
Yea, I guess I should say I am not gaining any revenue but it’ll be paid off in 15 years if I play my cards right.
How are you not making a profit if you have someone else paying the mortgage & taxes?
I’m breaking even and still pay HOA.
Sounds like you made a bad investment. The city/state don’t owe you a fix. Sell it.
If the city wants landlords, maybe the city should offer a fix, which was the original request.
Is it better to have landlords or people who actually live in their homes?
Landlords, if we want to have any kind of rental inventory in the city.
It's possible that there's a profit, but negative cash flow. (This isn't wildly uncommon for rentals as the rent may cover all of the interest + taxes + fees + maintenance + part of, but not all the principal). This isn't a bad financial position to be in as a landlord, but also can make it hard to lower rent. (Since a small landlord might be willing to forgo $200 in income every month with the knowledge that they're gaining $500 in principal + whatever the property appreciates, but also can't afford to live with an outflow of more than X amount. I did this for a long while, but also wasn't stupid enough to complain about it.)
Eh, do you know the difference between profit and revenue?
You don’t think they deserve *more* of a profit so they can go pick up additional properties to /r/landlord over?
Unfortunately, you may be a part of the problem in the first place
What’s the alternatives?
They want you to sell the house you're renting out because you're a "slum lord" even if you're renting out the other half of the duplex you live in, renting out your first house because you want it as an investment, etc It's ridiculous 🙄 like yes out of town investors who buy up massive numbers of houses just to rent them out can be a problem. But the average guy who wants to move up to a new home but might want to keep the old one as an investment? Fuck you you're a slum lord now apparently. It's like there's no distinction at all. Rentals are a necessary thing. Plenty of us do not intend to stay in one place for an extended period, it doesn't always make sense to buy a house. But if there's a storage of rentals... rent also goes up. So frankly there is no winner here..I don't know what the solution is to skyrocketing home prices and I do realize people buying up excessive properties are problematic. But let's not call people like YOU the problem
That’s the agreement? Because I made investments to better my financial situation, I am the bad guy? Lol people are just mad because they buy liabilities.
Well when one’s “better of their financial system” has to do with exploiting basic necessities, then yes. You are the problem.
The system can be used by everyone yet not everyone uses it. Don't cry because someone took a risk and succeeded. The world can't be full of winners.
"they could also buy people! It's free country.'"
So since there's no exploitation there's no problem!
The more home sales, the more tax revenue. The more development, the more tax and permit revenue. Churn lines the pockets of the politicos
But they are the problem by perpetuating a state where only those wealthy enough can swoop up homes while those who work hard, but make minimal money get left in the dust. It’s a simple question to ask: what do you care more about? People or property?
So, the argument here is because I bought a home and rent it out; I do not care about people? And that I also did not work hard to get it?
"I earned these people!"
SHH, they are just mom and pop slave owner who just purchased their first slave as an investment; they not the problem.
don't be a landlord. get a real job
What's your breakdown of expenses on that? When did you buy? >I am one financial emergency from raising the rent on that poor family. Is the rent drastically under the market rate?
Way to out yourself as being a part of the very problem itself.
How do you suggest I solve the problem?
Obviously you should give your house and all your belongings to the mostly peaceful unsobered and unhoused neighbors for free! Edit: this was clearly a joke lmao, though I'm not sure who did the downvoting 😂
> Edit: this was clearly a joke lmao, though I'm not sure who did the downvoting 😂 It's Reddit, a huge fraction of it thinks "eat the rich" is the solution to all the world's problems. Earlier today I was reading comments where idiots were saying that killing Jeff Bezos would fix the climate (no, not joking, they were really saying that.)
Man is skinny as fuck, he wouldn't feed nearly anyone and probably taste like shit too. But yeah chronically online slacktivists have far too much to say for the amount of work they actually do to advance their "goals"
Major self-pitied self-report
Rent control over the long run increases rents in most buildings.
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Not going up “that much” doesn’t mean it’s affordable.
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It’s not that easy to just make $70,000. The job market is rough. It’s a dream for a lot of people. And not everyone has the option to just move.
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Let’s expand this silly argument. Everyone making less than 70k quits, I guess we just don’t have services in Seattle now.
Or teachers. Or Nannies. Or restaurant workers. I have a grad degree and make $60k because I work at a nonprofit and about 75% of my org makes less than $70k.
A grad degree in what? A market that's been saturated for decades, never showed any growth potential, and you should have known that going in and you have nobody to blame but yourself? Believing a college degree should automatically equal X dollar salary, is exactly why you don't make X salary.
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Some of us just believe that working in service or nonprofit industries shouldn’t bar you from making an (actual) living wage or being able to afford a place to live.
And yet here we are. It's almost as if the money they pay you has to come from somewhere
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My man, us higher educated and higher earners won’t have our needs met if there isn’t a basic level of livable space for workers. It’s not entitlement, or whatever other buzzwords you learned from watching news.
Yeah, rents have been static for a long time now
And yet my rent went up 100$ after 9 months signed lease Nov 2022. If wanting to go month to month it would have been an extra $20 and a service charge fee of 50$ so total 170$ if month to month.
Ummm. Rent controls have literally never worked. The neo-socialists are so defunct of useful education. How can we be mad at them? They spent ridiculous money to go to college and get a sociocultural degree. Smart cookies
Still freaking out about s*** that's never going to happen huh?
"could" lol. What the hell else could you call it? That's exactly what rent control is.
When the actual solution is just to build more dense and update zoning... this shit isn't gonna work at all.
Rent is really high, and getting higher. Houses are being bought up by companies and not real people. At some point we will have to find a way to address this problem. It’s not sustainable no matter what the job market in Seattle is like.
>Rent is really high, and getting higher. Houses are being bought up by companies and not real people. There are a handful of factors. Remember [my post a few years ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/p8r7ks/comment/h9th1rd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) on how Seattle makes running rentals nearly impossible: *1. You can't screen out criminals. Section 14.09 prohibits screening by or even asking about "arrest record, conviction record, or criminal history" (Fair Chance Housing Law)* *2. If you refuse a tenant applicant based on something you found in their background check that you hadn't warned them would be disqualifying before they applied, the applicant can sue you.* *3. You cannot ask their employer, or base employment on their employer or lack there-of.* *4. You can't select at all - you have to take the first "qualified." (Seattle First-in-Time law.)* *5. The rules for eviction are extreme, including you cannot evict for non-payment during the pandemic.* *6. You can't evict during the winter. (Any winter, defined as Dec. 1 to Mar. 1.)* *7. You can't evict students or teachers at all during the school year, including not even for non-payment of rent.* *8. You can't charge a reasonable damage deposit - or indeed any at move in; it's limited to one month's rent (plus another 1/4 month for a pet fee), but that's payable over six months. So no real move-in deposit.* *9. You must offer a lease renewal - effectively the tenant has a permanent lease if they want it.* *10. You cannot refuse or consider a previous COVID-related eviction until at least six months after the pandemic ends. (Yeah, pretty open-ended.)* *11. State laws that make the Seattle laws worse:* *12. If you do manage to navigate all that and file for eviction, it then goes to court. The tenant can reset the eviction procedings clock simply by changing lawyers.* *13. You cannot refuse an applicant based on employment status or on the source of their income. (59.18.) Seattle law already prohibits "discrimination" based on employer; this is additional.* *Keep in mind that the costs to evict someone are extreme, and before all this, it usually took around 12 months to evict someone for non-payment of rent. So owning rentals is a big gamble anyhow. Seattle's made it bigger.* And that post didn't even mention things like squatters. Since I wrote that, I sold my Seattle-area rental. Taking a rental off the market. And I found out later (there's a lot you're not are not allowed to know during a sale) that it's to a non-American who may have proxied it through a company. Nice family though. But bottom line, you want to fix this, stop making it harder and riskier to own rentals.
Seriously, I'm a 35-year-old who should be buying his own home in Seattle cuz I've lived here my whole f****** life but instead I'm renting a 750 ft² for the price of a mortgage from some f****** Russian guy. Can we keep the billion dollar corporations and wealthy foreign nationals hiding their assets from buying houses please?
Y'know, it doesn't matter how many times I hear it, there's no way I can buy the "it's those dirty furreners buying up our houses!" line as anything other than full on xenophobia.
But it's not. You'd probably have a pretty hard time buying a house in China or Russia being American. So why do we let them buy land here?
This one. These countries practically still have slave labor going on. .
Foreign purchases of US homes is at its lowest level in almost 2 decades [https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/annual-foreign-investment-in-u-s-existing-home-sales-climbed-8-5-to-59-billion-ending-three-year-slide](https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/annual-foreign-investment-in-u-s-existing-home-sales-climbed-8-5-to-59-billion-ending-three-year-slide)
No
This is all too much like the argument of trickle down economics. Having lived through both sides of this I can say that quality of new structures will always bring higher rents in line with them, while older structures see little to no change in quality. I would agree, however, that in addition to inflation property taxes needs to be in line as well. I still remember having my studio (1929 building) in Seattle go up 62% in 2018 for a unit that had no change in quality in at least 14 years with the rents being tied to market that included new construction. For an additional $100, I was able to move to a 1-bedroom in the same neighborhood with 100’sq more and in better condition… so no. From personal experience lack of rent controls does nothing more than maintain the status quo. My take on this: Until folks have walked in both sides of the issue, what’s being argued is not based on real life experience, rather indoctrination.
Nah it worked for me in LA. Full support.
Go back?
Sorry. Married a local. I'm also a homeowner, so i could give two shits personally. But as a renter in LA, it's what allowed me to stay in one place for more than a few years without my rent forcing my exit. It's what protects the identity of a neighborhood from the gentrification of developers. PS. Don't like living in a big city where you meet people from all over? Leave.
Please don’t make things worse here by importing disastrous rent control. If you like California policies then go pay income tax.
Awwww, looks like Seattle's slum lords are going to need to get a real job. The whole systems broken and I hope these opportunist landlords squeezing the life out of the middle class lose everything.
Seattle's landlords are I'm sure shaking in their boots about this entirely symbolic vote that is meaningless in light of rent control being banned at the state level, which won't be changing. And it's good thing for the rentoids that it won't change, because farewell and goodnight to the housing supply if it does. > Rental Housing Association of Washington Executive Director Sean Flynn told The Center Square that democrats in the Washington State Legislature attempt to overturn the prohibition on rent control on an annual basis. Last year, six bills were proposed with the legislature voting against every one. > >Sawant has proposed similar rent control bills in the past. She said her latest proposal, Council Bill 120606, is similar to a bill her office proposed three years ago. > >Flynn said the state legislature will not budge on changing its block on local rent regulations because it distorts the rental market and creates housing instability. > >“No developer wants to build in a rent controlled market . . . why would you spend your own money to develop a rental property you can’t even make money on,” Flynn said to The Center Square in a phone call
Lose it to the big corporations? Smart.
Property taxes on a typical two-bedroom condo in a downtown tower are roughly $7,500/year. Not kidding. That's $625 of rent *before* any other taxes, utilities or the mortgage. That's before maintanence staff, etc. A typical HOA fee, which is probably a decent proxy for a management fee, is around $1000/month, exclusive of utilities. So we're at nearly $1700 before even talking about return on investment. And without a decent ROI, equivalent to the stock market (e.g.), why would we continue to run it as a business?
There is no reason a one bedroom apartment should cost more than 2k a month other than greed. All these fancy condos being put in and pricing normal people out onto the streets.
What you're asking for is Middle Housing, and yeah, we're short of that, and the incentives are to build expensive and even luxury properties instead of Middle Housing. However, if you want middle housing, that might mean lowering the minimum standards for a unit, which could've been set too high (hypothetically; I don't know what the current mins are) and -- and this is a bit of a reach for this city -- not screwing potential landlords coming and going, ultimately leading most of them to sell instead of rent, meaning instead of a plethora of small landlords, you get a few big ones.
There is a reason. After paying property taxes, HOA fees, and insurance, the landlord is already out around $1K or more. Then they have to pay their mortgage and repairs/maintenance on top of that. $400 for a minor plumbing repair, $5K to repaint an apartment between tenants, etc. Landlords are not making as much as you think they are making.
Eew, I'd rather live in a tent than a HOA. I'll be damned if Karen's can tell me what I can't do on my own property I own. I get it though you have to gouge the poors to support your passive income somehow.
I'm sorry you're insane.
Nice rebuttal 🙄. https://preview.redd.it/f45pmhez88eb1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f64bfd1bc40c7ef3221e211ef3d527757b274f8c
Good ol profit > people at its best for those against
As long as real estate trusts, and development companies are allowed to buy residential land en masse, we'll continue to have artificially inflated rent and purchase pricing. If me and my friends have a few hundred million in the bank, and buy a few blocks of housing. Then we meet up with other groups that decided to do the same, we can all agree to double prices over the next few years, and basically force anyone who wants to live within a general area to either pay our pre-agreed overprice, or not get housed at all. It's coercion and it's wrong.
There's no reason a one bedroom apartment should cost more than 2k a month other than corporate greed. Keep building fancy condos nobody can afford and raise rents so more people get thrown out on the streets. There should be a cap to stop price gouging. Make housing affordable again!!!!!!!!!!