The analysis is thin, but the summary table of major differences between the two competing pieces of legislation to amend San Francisco’s new short-term rental law, as prepared by the City’s Office of Economic Analysis to examine the economic impact of each, provides a decent overview.
The report’s ‘conclusions’ page highlights the real crux of the problem with respect to ever effectively regulating short-term rentals and enforcing the law in San Francisco: a lack of data and transparency with respect to the practice, the collection of which is hindered by a lack of reporting requirements for hosting platforms, such as Airbnb.
And of course, beyond the two competing amendments, there’s the proposed ‘Airbnb’ ballot measure that’s in the works as well.
Can someone recommend a hosting platform outside San Francisco’s jurisdiction? AirBnB has worked well for me, but with all of the petty local politics, it’s time to look elsewhere.
AirBNB needs to take some responsibility here to get out in front of this
How do you get out in front of SF being SF?
they should take charge of some of the requirements that the city is about to mandate. if they would agree to do them as part of their policy, it would go a long way. The least they can do is require proof of registration with the city before allowing the user to airbnb their place
something very similar to the campos legislation is circulating right now with signature collectors, almost a certainty to make the ballot and pass, no matter how much money is funneled into the opposition campaign.
people in fora like socketsite can blame the residents of sf for foiling their sweet deal or opposing free market principles, but the real problem is mayor lee. his office massively under-estimated the blowback from his overreach on the initial airbnb legislation, leading to a much more extreme plan here, sure to pass. city is on a wire here these days.
[Editor’s Note: As we linked above and we first reported last week: Ballot Measure To Restrict Airbnb Activity In San Francisco Filed.]
The supes and the people who blindly support their anti- business escalation are the problem.
These legislations have only one goal: perpetuate the 2-tier rental system in San Francisco.
This is not about saving homes or social justice. It’s about paying $1 for what is worth $5 and digging into someone else’s pocket for the difference.
How do any of these make housing more affordable or the average residents of the City better off?
How is taxing out of town visitors more to support the kleptocracy at City Hall is in anyone’s interest?
I think we need to change the city motto from “Oro en Paz, Fierro en Guerra” – to “Opprimes eum Viator!”
[Editor’s Note: Analyst’s Airbnb Findings And Recommendations For San Francisco.]
AirBnb only have themselves to blame.
Airbnb/Uber/Lyft will almost certainly be trying to be growth plays when they go out to the market. And this gives them huge incentives to keep up growth whatever the cost and ignore or delay any regulatory complaints until after there’s some IPO or other type of cash out.
No, you don’t want to IPO under a legal cloud.
Some investors will overlook a lot of warts as long as they see growth. All three of Airbnb/Uber/Lyft have already raised huge sums at huge valuations while being under a legal cloud. I don’t know if or how much the principles have been able to cash out. But it’s pretty clear that any legal issues have not damped investor enthusiasm. And i’d guess that these valuations are due to the reported growth and that this fact is not lost on those running these companies. So as I said above, they’ll have a huge incentive to pursue growth at all costs and defer any reckoning until after a cash out.
You are confusing public markets with private markets.
The incentive of the principles is to get to the cash out. Whether the cash is coming from private or public investments is irrelevant. Plenty of people have sold out for large sums to private investors.
Also, public investors have overlooked so many details when dazzled with a growth story I hardly think a legal cloud would stop IPO’s with this much hype. Now if they actually get shut down to a significant degree, that’s a different story. Nobody wants a growth play that’s shrinking for whatever reason.
Although their “principles” may be dubious, I think you mean “principals.”
SF is tiny. Not everything in this world is about SF.
Do you see how ridiculous you sound? How big is SF compared with the rest of airbnb’s business?
SFers rhymes with navel gazer. You should get out of the 7×7 more.
As you ought to know, Airbnb’s issues with regulators are not confined to SF. They’ll do fine but there’s uncertainty about how fine.
I think the logic, which applies not just to SF, is that since what they are doing is already technically illegal in most places cities could have already shut them down if they really wanted to. Since they’ve been operating for a while now and despite sabre rattling have not been shut down, you could conclude that cities don’t really want to shut them down.
Now, if there’s some ballot measure that shows widespread support for shutting them down things could change. But they seem to provide a popular service and even those who may not be hosts may use them or a similar service as a guest. So they seem likely to have widespread popular support.
I wouldn’t put the probability of a regulatory disaster at zero, but I do think it’s unlikely.
Like SF matters to them? Sure it’s their home, but AAPL would do fine if the iPhone were outlawed in Cupertino….
I have friends with young kids who own a SFH. They added a ground floor studio suite (with permits) that they rent out when not occupied by visiting grandparents. It has a separate entrance but is apart of the house so they qualify as hosted short-term rentals under the current law. They are registered under the current short-term rental law.
Now they are feeling rather duped by the prospect of being restricted to 60 or 120 days. They wouldn’t have bothered with the hassle of registering and all the scrutiny, paperwork and taxes it requires for just 2-3 months of short-term rentals.
Regardless, their studio is NEVER going to be long-term housing stock. If the restrictive measures pass they figure they’ll delete their AirBnB account, remove themselves from the registry and go back to renting it short-term under the radar, not paying any hotel tax. So the city actually loses money and data.
Basically, these measures are riddled with unintended consequences that are going to backfire.
The city needs to have this legislation vetted by behavioral economic models before it’s even allowed to be voted on to ensure it doesn’t do more harm than good.
we’re way past that because the mayor’s office accepted airbnb data and drafted the initial leg along lines favorable to the company. because the politicians went this way, instead of doing a legit study, you have a ballot initiative – sure to pass – that’ll bring in something more extreme than people want but closer to what they think is good policy than what the mayor proposed. in this context, the wiener proposal is lost in the noise and, to a large extent, outside of the circle of people who depend on lee’s good graces for a paid position, the mayor’s office hasn’t much credibility to squash the debate.
so complain all you want about how the people of sf have ruined your poor grandmother’s room in the back of their house that was serving so many deserving tourists – the lee people overreached and now we’re getting another 555 washington, 8 washington, wall on the waterfront, “legacy” stadium under the bay bridge, etc.
Your friends have also turned their home into a duplex, and if it was built before 1978, both the main house and the inlaw unit are now under by Rent Control. No good deed goes unpunished.
And when their neighbors turn them in for their “under the radar” activity, they can be fined or sued. Good luck to them.
sfgwf – I understand this one well. I live in a ‘hood like this. Good for them that they want to rent it out – I’m all for it on AirBnB/whatever (as long as it’s done legally)!
But I certainly wouldn’t be up for them renting it more than, say, 60 or 120 days a year. If so, I’m living next to a BnB. Not what I signed up for when I bought the house in your hood (if it was a legit BnB, then I would have known that prior to moving into your hood and then shame on me for buying and not knowing).
If they can’t be happy with getting 60 or 120 days a year of income and instead feel they are entitled to more because ‘they can’ do it under the radar, fine…but I’ll be the first to take them to city and likely they’ll get fined. I didn’t sign up to live next to neighbors doing that. Great that the current neighbors don’t mind, but I’m sure that’ll eventually end (either one of them will not like it, or a new neighbor moves in, or your friends move out and the new people who move in and do this end up abusing it).
So they have a choice: stop renting it out under the radar, OR continue doing so knowing they may get fined, OR take the 60 or 120 and be happy, OR rent it out to the public as a normal unit, OR..sell their house and move away where they can do this all they want in some other town. LOTS of options for them…I’m not going to cry for them at all.
Sorry but I don’t agree with sfgwf. The neighbors who perhaps own SFHs on either side of your friend did not sign up to live next door to hotel – and not a professionally run one at that. They live in a neighborhood zoned for SFH or perhaps up to two units per building. This affects property values and is not in the best interest of neighborhood stability, IMO.
I agree with you. I don’t think they should be allowed to become a motel. A single family neighborhood should remain just that.
Motel? Where?
Are you suggesting that the City can control unrelated adults living together in a “single family” home?
Zoning should control turning a single family home into a hotel by allowing people to regularly rent to strangers, on a casual basis, rooms (or more) in their house. That is VERY different than hosting a relative or friend who is visiting for a weekend – even if that happened regularly. That is not what people who bought their home in the neighborhood signed up for and precisely, IMO, what zoning should protect us from. They do not have a public lodging certificate of occupancy. There are all sorts of things that public lodgers need to do to comply with the law, and these folks are doing NONE of it.
When a municipality starts trying to regulate what goes on in a single unit that is owner occupied, it’s trying to interfere in ways that zoning typically does not. There are certainly places where local ordinances bar families from renting rooms or combining households. “Unrelated adults” rules exist to keep out students or immigrants, etc. and are quite popular in suburbs, etc. Those rules do not exist in SF and imposing them is just asking for lawsuits… which the City will lose.
“neighborhood stability”. How do you define that?
The first thing to ensure neighborhood stability would be to make SF a city of homeowners. But instead the city has decided to make it a city of lifer/renters, usurping property rights by forcing a landlord to heed to the rights of a tenant without any other recourse than great financial prejudice.
Hey; the landlord next door decided to airbnb his unit. Guess what? The reason he is doing it is because he’s seen other mom-and-pop landlords losing their shirts at the rent control lottery.
Without rent control, there would be less airbnb offers.
SF has never been a “city of homeowners.” Most of the residents have been renters and most of the housing has been rentals. Homeownership rates in SF now are about the same as back in the 1950s when they filled out the SFH tract neighborhoods. FWIW, SF has always had a relatively high percentage of immigrants and new arrivals/transients. Not surprising for a port city with a boom and bust economy.
Why do you so often distort SF and US history to try to blame things you don’t like on rent control?
How did that homeowner stability work out for Las Vegas?
Jake, where did I say SF “was” a city of homeowners? That’s the straw man argument of the day, and you’re running with it without restrain!
Since its creation, SF has been mainly a city of transient workers, which is why there were so many SROs.
Now the city worries that people might not be able to stay all their lives in their cheap cheap rentals. But they try to do it with OP’sM. I am saying the next logical step is to get people to buy their units into TICs. We could achieve the national rate of homeownership (around 63%) by allowing the conversion and sale of current rental unit.
Now the problem is whether the tenants could afford to buy their units. It is their problem. After all it’s an expensive city and not everyone can afford to live there. But the frog hasn’t realized yet the water is boiling.
About LV, the main difference is that there are just not enough good paying jobs to justify the 320K an average home cost in 2006. Now they’ve become very cheap in 2011 at 110K but they have recovered to a more decent 200K today. Still at these levels this seems a bit overpriced, since LV is mostly in the tourist service business. Cleaning ladies and other low paying jobs are the norm. With SF tech/rental incomes, life is pretty sweet 😉
Is a high home ownership rate a sign of a successful country?
sFS, you implied that SF could be made “a city of homeowners” if not for rent control.
While SF has always had a relatively large percentage of transient workers, it certainly has not “been mainly a city of transient workers.” After the Gold Rush passed, the city settled into being the primary commercial, manufacturing, and administrative center in the pacific region of the USA. One of the disputes in the 1870 census for SF was how to count the transient population, which was was around 5% of the total give or take the few percent which were in disputed. People can argue about the definition of “transient” and how the numbers changed over the years, but SF has had a core stable population since around the US Civil War. By 1870 it was the 10th most populous city in the USA.
Whether we like how rent control operates or not, it has increased housing stability for many people in SF. SF won’t force people to buy or leave and it doesn’t need to. FWIW, renters outnumber homeowners in the four largest cities in the USA: NYC, LA, Chicago, and Houston; as well as in many other cities. Not clear that you understand “the way the country works.”
Yes the major cities are mostly cities of tenants but this is an obsolete business model as inner cities are not the transitory “heart/pump” that attracted talent and then distributes it to the outside. Now they are THE destination where people want to spend their lives and the rental model just doesn’t cut it anymore. Exhibit A – the cost of buying anything in SF. Exhibit B – the desperation to keep the obsolete rental model in place. Exhibit C – the White Buses that move people from the boring ‘burbs to the City.
The battle going on to keep the old model alive despite its cerebral death is a lost one. There is no justification for rent control and only people who profit from it will defend it. Everyone else wants it gone. What does it feel for progressives to be on the side of the old coots that they used to make fun of 20 years before? I wish they could see the irony.
That is patently offensive. Longterm renters contribute to neighborhoods, too. They participate in neighborhood groups, PTAs, fundraisers, community gardens, etc.
Did I say otherwise? It looks like there’s a straw man factory on SS.
If they want to put down real roots, they should buy. This is the way the country works.
I’d modify that to: they should buy, or pay market rent.
As usual jake thinks he’s being smart by flooding us with archaic history from the 1870’s, but newsflash, RC has only been in existence since 1979. THAT is the great distortion, not SF’s housing history prior to that. And Fonzi is spot on about how the inner city is now the destination, and not the poor man’s quiet tenement-SRO-default-living- that is without market forces intervening.
The point was rather simple- the homeownership rate in SF is growing, as the city continues to become more expensive and an elite destination. And RC stock is slowly decreasing. But before one cries out, but who wants a sterile and elite city, may I remind you that the change, partly due to RC, is very gradual. It’s a perfect storm for SF RE investors, as we know where things are going, while finding ever increasing ways to benefit from the artificial distortions city gov attempts to devise.
Once again SFRentair is wrong on the facts and the concepts. The actual Census data shows the homeownership rate has declined in SF since a peak in 2008:
2013 35.9%
2012 35.9%
2011 36.1%
2010 36.6%
2009 37.6%
2008 39.5%
As I mentioned above, homeownership rates in SF are similar to where they were generations ago. FWIW, the homeownership rate in SF in 1950 was 36.7% and in 1960 it was 35%. But who knows (obviously not SFRentair) maybe these times are different.
Jake, on the ball as usual. The facts do matter. False premises generally lead to incorrect conclusions.
This is interesting, and this was not obvious to me with all the building (much of which, apparently, is rental stock). Confirms to me that rent control is never, ever going away in SF, at least not the lifetime of anyone currently alive (unless the courts totally reverse course and strike it down — extremely unlikely). 99.9% of renters covered by RC will vote to keep it. And a large majority of non-RC renters will vote to keep it because, as renters, they see it as in their interest (correctly or not). Homeowners may swing away from it — but you’d need a large majority of homeowners to carry the vote. And that ain’t happening.
That’s a joke-jake. Nice how you cherry pick from the recession of 2008 onwards. Cute.
And my point was, that recession aside, homeownership rate is GROWING. What was the home ownership rate in the late 70’s- early 80’s? Promise you it was lower than 2008. That’s when RC went into effect. And from, I’d say, the 90’s onwards, how ownership has been increasing. The bottom line is that as the city gentrifies, and RC is like a lead weight, homeownership will grow, OR market rate rentals supply will grow. Number of RC units shrink. I don’t care if you’re an owner or a renter- as long as you’re paying market rent. Kapish?
Okayyy JR Bob, don’t know how you come to that conclusion from jake’s irrelevant “facts.” Even if homeownership is not growing (which you can’t just base off recent recession #’s), it is not growing because of non RC rentals hitting the market. And most of those tenants clearly see the connection between their premium rents vs lifer-losers milking cheap RC units. Plus most who can afford non RC, if they decide to make SF their home long term, are prime candidates for home ownership.
This is strictly a class issue. Well off upwardly mobile people have options, to lease or buy. Lower class can only hang on to RC units. And (the distortion, of course) well off people benefiting from RC as a strategic investment.
Bottom line: RC units are going down in volume any which way they can. Anything else is market rate. THATS the pull effect I was talking about, and it’s irrelevant to home ownership rates from the 1870’s. But go ahead, stumble around some more on “facts.” Nerds.
Yeah, what does the US Census know about statistical data gathering compared to the unfulfilled promises of a middle-aged grouch.
More than 80% of the new housing completed last year in SF was rental, according to the 2014 SF Planning Department Housing Inventory Report, issued April 2015. I guess no one told all those developers about the new urban homeowner onslaught.
Maybe you guys weren’t paying attention, but homeownership peaked all over the US back in the housing bubble nearly ten years ago. Remember when loan terms were much easier and prices in SF were lower.
Fact is that urban homeownership has declined in major US cities. Anyone that wants to learn more about why can read this new study by NYU Furman Center and Capital One (namelink), which says:
“In 2006, the majority of the population in just five of America’s 11 largest cities lived in rental housing. By 2013, that number increased to nine cities. The rental population is booming – nine out of 11 cities saw double-digit growth in the number of renters, and five of those cities saw growth exceeding 20 percent.”
And Freddie Mac just released a new study: “We’ve found that rising rents do not appear to be playing a significant role in motivating renters to buy,” David Brickman, an executive vice president at Freddie Mac, said in a statement. “This contradicts what some in the housing market think as they expect more renters ought to be actively looking to purchase a home.”
But then SFrentair has never been one to let facts intrude on his fantasies.
I’ll explain it to you again. We were talking about SF specifically. Home ownership rate is growing, compared to RC units. That’s what we care about. THAT was the point that is relevant to SF. Market rate rentals coming online serve a different market, that does not adversely effect home ownership. And as both of those increase, RC units and their political influence recede.
Oh, and as for all those newly built rental units, most are mapped as condos. I wouldn’t expect them to stay rentals forever, as the institutional investors that tend to own those will sell them as condos when it makes financial sense.
What exactly are you trying to prove? That home ownership in SF isn’t going up? But market rate rentals are. Well they both serve the same purpose: to gentrify the city and they reduce RC stock as a percent of total. So again, you throw out some stats, but there is no meaning or relevance to the bigger picture. God you must have attended a middling college!
I did NOT state that the rate was growing. Do not include me in this discussion.
My train of thought is simply the following:
City centers that have a certain critical mass are now destinations for families. The several proofs are 1) Added renter protection precisely to keep tenants in the city 2) sale prices much much higher than the suburbs.
There’s a NEED for more stability, and the City is misdirecting this force towards more renter protection. I am saying that stability has always been ensured by homeownership, and the rental model is obsolete. So obsolete that in order to make it survive another year renter protection looks more and more like a taking, and in a way, a virtual partial transfer of ownership privilege, since the City wants to impose hefty compensation to a tenant who loses his cheap cheap lease.
sfrentier, you asserted: “the homeownership rate in SF is growing, as the city continues to become more expensive and an elite destination.” That you said exactly this isn’t really debatable. It’s right there in this thread. Now you say that what you really said was that “Home ownership rate is growing, compared to RC units” – a very different (and basically meaningless) point. You were trying to show that the trends are moving away from RC-support as we become a city of homeowners. Thus, a premise of increasing homeownership rates was critical to your argument. But your premise was wrong, as Jake showed.
Look, just admit you were wrong. Like, you, I also thought that the ownership rate in SF was growing. I would have guessed it had moved from 39% in 2008 to about 45% today. Thus, I was surprised by Jake’s real data (not “irrelevant facts”) showing that, in fact, the trend is in the other direction. I suppose my error originates from the fact that I know literally hundreds of SF homeowners but only a couple of renters (due, primarily, to my age, I’m sure). So it looks like SF will continue to be a city of renters for a long, long time, and that means pro-tenant legislation (like rent control) and politicians will be the rule. It is more likely that rent control will be extended (say, to post-1978 structures) than carved back.
Jake’s numbers are misleading. He quotes from the recession of 2008 to 2013. I did say homeownership rate is growing. So, what is the number for 2014? 2015? I betcha it’s higher than 35.9.
Secondly, the only other competition to the homeownership rate is new market rate rentals. These and ownership both are increasing against RC units, which are decreasing every year. It may be a long time, but eventually the RC boosters will loose their political edge.
RC extended to post 78? Ain’t gonna happen. I’m sure you know that it state law, and overturning costa Hawkins is going to require cooperation from state legislature- not likely IMO.
Lastly, I somewhat disagree with Fonzi. Yes homeowners tend to bring stability and that is good. BUT, I have no problem with high end renters, wrt their effect on the community. All the people paying market rents are professionals, self made, or the occasional trustfunders. Hell, I don’t mind all the modest income-working-class-alternative people on RC either- as long as they are not in my frickin units!
Continued from paragraph #1: “So, what is the number for 2014? 2015? I betcha it’s higher than 35.9%.” Now that the recession is clearly over and we have been in expansion mode (especially in SF and RE sales are hot), PROVE to me that homeownership in 2014-15 will be lower than 35.9%. And if you can’t do that, I am right. Right. Right. Right.
Now that we have established that you were wrong about homeownership increasing recently in SF, we can move on to the rest of your ramblings.
Of course RC is declining as a percentage of total housing in SF, albeit very slowly. It always has been since RC started. That’s built into the law, not some brilliant insight. Thanks for cluing us all in to your “newsflash.”
In case anyone is interested in facts, SF has actually added thousands more renter-occupied housing units than owner-occupied since rent control was enacted. The homeownership percentages for SF from the US Census have gone from about 34% in 1980 to about 36% now. And all it took was 35 years of rent control and a drop in the mortgage interest rates from the 10-14% range of 1979-80 to the more recent 3-5% range. Wonder which has had a bigger impact.
SFrentair, you seem to be obsessed with things you don’t know and never will, like my education and elementary mathematics. You also seem to be habituated to forming strong opinions based on no data, then digging in on them when others doubt you, and ultimately embarrassing yourself by childishly demanding others meet some standard of proof you never apply to yourself. In this thread you’ve given us a falsehood, some obvious generalities about RC that have been well known for decades, and more of your misplaced ad hominem. What a sad trail you have left in the google cache.
“Now that we have established that you were wrong about homeownership increasing recently in SF”
Recently is 2014 and 2015. 2008-12 is biased by the recession. Even your own data shows 2012-13 as point of stabilization. So I’m quite sure the next years will show an increase. Hence I am right in saying home ownership rates have recently been increasing.
WRT relevance to the discussion, my point is that more home ownership and more market rate rental housing work to weaken RC political standing. Sure it’s a slow process, but going in the right direction.
Your problem is that you list some stats, but really fail to provide much relevance to the greater discussion. Almost all your posts are one dimensional and intellectually lacking in depth and context. SF’s housing is a complex and multi disciplinary subject, and you are ill equipped to add much to the discussion. As for a pissing match, which you seem bent on having, I have way more knowledge on SF RE than you pal. I’ve made several very successful investments here, to the extent that I easily live off them. I look at multiple types of stats, both micro and macro, all the time, but know the limit of their value. Whereby your analysis starts and stops with some usually arcane or limited data, and you think you’re a genius. Most of your posts here, especially wrt RC are dreck. Sorry old chap, but you’re a pansy.
In case anyone cares, the Census won’t release their 2014 housing survey results at the county level until this fall. They release the data for the MSA level each quarter (namelink). For Q1 2015 the homeownership rate was down 2.1% year-over-year in the SF MSA, continuing the declining trend since the 2006 peak.
SFrentair, this has been a no contest not a pissing contest. Once again, you are the guy that brings checkers to a chess match and a tic tac toe set to a go tournament. Whenever challenged, all you offer are utterly trivial statements, unsubstantiated speculations, outright faleshoods, and trash talk. All somehow justified in your own mind by your bank account. That’s your repertoire and has become the book on you. How impressively self-important. I don’t mind sparing with someone that can’t lay a glove on me. Exercising with a lightweight patsy like you is just as good a warmup as shadowboxing and just as entertaining as a clown show.
I stand by what I said:
“Almost all your posts are one dimensional and intellectually lacking in depth and context. SF’s housing is a complex and multi disciplinary subject, and you are ill equipped to add much to the discussion.”
“I look at multiple types of stats, both micro and macro, all the time, but know the limit of their value. Whereby your analysis starts and stops with some usually arcane or limited data, and you think you’re a genius.”
And appropriately, The Tubes song White Punks on Dope is playing in the background, and it’s very ending is your swan song…
Jake,
I am trying to wrap my head about these declining homeownership rates.
I am just one per on, but one of the reasons I moved to LV was because of 1) opportunity to make the jump for a couple of years 2) sky-high SF rental rates vs. rock-bottom LV rents.
Now I am faced with a rapidly bulging bank account and the prospect of a diminished income if I move back to SF. One less homeowner for ya. There is a huge incentive to sell out and leave SF behind.
sfS, people have been cashing out from California RE runups to move to cheaper places for a long time and in large enough numbers to have caused political/social backlash (lookup the history of “Californication” particularly wrt Oregon).
If you own a residential unit in SF, but live in a rental unit in LV, then you don’t contribute to the homeownership rate in either place. The Census only counts owner-occupied (primary residence) as homeowners. Otherwise, if you owned homes in several places you could be counted in all of them (some entity always owns the unit). Since you rent your SF unit to people a month or so at a time, how it would be counted depends on the duration of the occupancy at the time of the count. Less than 2 months by the same tenant counts as a vacant rental.
If you were to move back to SF and live in the unit or if you sell your SF unit to someone that moves into it from a rental or from outside SF, then you will have raised the homeownership rate in SF. If you stop renting out your unit in SF and just leave it vacant, then you will contribute to the homeowner vacancy rate in SF. Depending on what you do with your unit, it could be any of the 4 values of (owner|renter, occupied|vacant).
FWIW, the homeowner survey sample is small enough that the margin of error on the rate is about 4k units (~0.1%). Changes in the actual rate depends on thousands of people making these decisions in concert. When you compare that with SF only having about 6k home resales per year and another 1-2k of new/conversion homes for purchase, then it is easy to understand how the homeownership rate changes very little from year to year in SF and has stayed within the 33-40% range for something like 60+ years and within the 34-37% range for almost all of those 60+ years. It really takes an exceptional external change, like the liar-loan era financing propping up the numbers or a severe recession pushing down the numbers, to move the number much in SF. FirstTuesday has a summary of many of the factors (namelink).
______________________
SFrentair, of course you stand by what you said, we’ve learned not to expect you to learn from your follies. Even when JR “Bob” Dobbs above pointed out to you that “you were wrong,” you just ignored his point and tried to change the subject, as you have done many times when someone calls you out on SS. And of course you have nothing more to say than lame trash talk. As soon as anyone pops your overinflated paper thin ego, all that is left is hot air and stench. You just rely on being so obnoxious that everyone stops responding to you. Look at your postings on this thread, a big zero of info. Hopefully, even you know that one dimension is more than zero dimension. You remain a dim (witted) point of light, befouling the firmament.
I contribute a lot more insight to this blog than you do. I am more knowledgeable than you about SF RE, the local political climate and its effects, plus the macro economic picture’s effect on SF RE. I actually own a home here, as well as several investment properties, so I put my money where my mouth is. You provide little insight, wrapped in delusional pretense. Your answer to Fonzi above- big whoop! Californication- did you just google that? Wow, that’s some insight.
My answer to Fonzi: don’t sweat it. The homeownership rate in SF is more tied to the local economy, and to the amount of newly constructed rentals being built (almost none from 2004-2008 to quite a few from 2012-present.) The desire to buy a home in SF exists in spades, but the forces preventing it are also great. Namely that few homes are available for sale most times, strong competition for those homes, and the fact that unless you can afford $1.5-2 mil, D10 is looking like your only option. That, or a small condo. So many well off people rent here.
The exact percentage doesn’t even matter. (But as an absolute number homeownership grows.) What matters is that a steady trickle of RC units are being lost to TICs, and that all new rentals (or even turnovers in RC stock) are all part of the gentrification wave. Those are the trends that will help to make the city safer, cleaner, and richer. IMO it’s a gradual change so the character and feel of the city will evolve and not dramatically change in one fell swoop (Inspite of what housing anti displacement activists say.) So if you already own RE in SF you can continue to enjoy that benefit. As far as cashing out and getting out of here goes (outside of personal preference), come talk to me once tech becomes a mature industry.
Actually, they checked with their neighbors and the neighbors are fine with it because it’s always hosted and the neighbors know they can call them directly if they have any issues with their short-term renters. The local businesses/restaurants within 2-3 blocks love it as well which would seem to indicate that it supports neighborhood stability.
For the record, I don’t list anything for rent on AirBnB or vrbo, etc, so I have no profit motive. I do think homeowners should be able to do short-term rentals as long as they pay hotel taxes. A homeowner could feasibly just have lots of friends and family or exchange students continually visit and it’s fine but once they charge money it’s illegal and contributing to the housing crisis? That seems silly to me.
They could just get a conditional use permit to operate as a bed & breakfast. If, in fact, the neighbors and local merchants are in favor of this use, it will not be that hard to get it through Planning.
actually, obtaining a conditional use permit can be quite challenging
actually, no one applying for a conditional use permit for a b&b has ever been turned down.
Wouldn’t the city require providing a replacement unit for the one “lost” to BnB?
No.
i do think neighbors within the same block should have some say in the issuing of a permit for Air BnB rentals
does airBnB check their users vs. the Megan’s Law sex offender database?
Megan’s Law? How would that work to improve safety? Air B&B doesn’t have enough information to positively identify whether or not the party renting a property is a sex offender. And even if they did there might not be any legal basis to deny them.
Hey moto mayhem, your neighbors would like to ask you to use your motorbike only between 8:30AM and 6PM. After all you are noisy and waking up everyone when you go out at night. Some of your neighbors on the block work night shifts and need their sleep.
Signed: your local Nimby busybody
MoD,
airbnb does have identities and such, plus verifiable Facebook, email accounts. They could run a check against offenders and it would actually make sense. Airbnb is a legitimate business and they should be very careful not to have a bad apple spoil the bunch.
You’ll need to submit this as a ballot measure.
san FronziScheme – It might be hard to match up a registered airB&B user to the Megan’s Law DB. You need more than their name to do the job. For example, look up a common name like “Michael Smith” and you get 25 matches. Not all of them have photos or reliable addresses. A good PI could resolve this but is airB&B going to hire a detective for every new registrant and then re-check them periodically? It takes time and money.
Then there are people who aren’t felons but just plain undesirable guests who break stuff, make a lot of noise, and leave a mess. AirB&B has a way to track reputations so at least those boorish guests can’t get away with that behavior forever. Until they can create a new e-identity.
MoD. I had to provide an ID to airbnb. Plus the financial info should also help.
Access to an ID would help but still doesn’t ensure an easy match to the Megan’s DB. For someone with a unique name like Zbigniew Pharneltuttle you could be reasonable sure. But for common names you need more info. As far as I know the Megan’s DB doesn’t offer unique ID info like CDL or SSN.
since its a requirment for sex offenders addresses to be public in california, i think it should also be public for any airbnb addresses for airbnb staying sex offenders to be public. are they next to a school? a playground? your kids?
moto mayhem,
You could make the case that these should be required for hotels too. After all airbnb rentals are often described as “Motels” by the more vocal detractors.
yes, but most hotels are in commercial districts. most airBnBs are in highly residential areas with more kids
I live in a 6 unit apt. building that two of the tenants utilize AirBnB to supplement their income. My landlord sent out a letter to all stating short term rentals go against our lease but it has not abated the situation… Personally, I do not like having people that haven’t had a credit or personal history check on file coming in and out of here on a daily basis. It’s not what I agreed to.
You might want to contact the SFTU and see if they will help you get your landlord to enforce the lease.
Ya…right
I may be misremembering, but I believe that under the recent legislation, a landlord can only evict for such a “sublet” lease violation after he/she first warns the tenant. Sounds like that is what your landlord is doing. Also, you can’t force your landlord to enforce a provision in a lease with a different tenant (unless this rises to something like a nuisance, which is doubtful). But YOU can initiate a complaint if your neighbor is violating the law on this and directly stop it.
Talk with your LL first. I’m sure he’d appreciate the help in documenting the activity, as you live there. Then he can handle this (it’s clearly in his interest too) and you don’t have to get personally involved. Tenants should always try to work with their LL first, then only go to agencies like SFTU or city offices as a last resort.
UPDATE: Supervisors Reject More Restrictive Airbnb Regulations