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Comment by ryanobjc | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how many commenters here actually live in SF or know anything about it... San Francisco has one of the most tenant friendly laws in the entire country. Rent control is very strict, and the whole "rent has gone up by X%" ... well it has gone up no more than 1% for existing tenants. Because that is the legal limit.

New units are not subject to rent control, but if you don't move, then you will never really pay much more for rent. People in my building pay 50% what I pay for the same layout, and new people will probably pay 2x what I am paying for the same layout as well.

Commercial property tho doesnt have rent control however. But that's kind of a different argument, right?

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> San Francisco has one of the most tenant friendly laws in the entire country

What? SF is infested by rent-controlled buildings. Rent control is the most tenant-hostile policy ever invented. It basically means that newcomers (or people who had to move) are subsidizing ridiculous rents of those who haven't moved in a while. Rent control restricts the freedom of movement.

My barber pays $1600 for a 2br apartment two blocks from the my building where a shitty 1br got rented within an hour after showing up on craigslist. The very same 1br was $2,400 just a year ago, and $2,200 two years ago.

Rent control doesn't apply to single-family homes or new construction (anything built after 1979, according to SFTU). And owners can get around rent control, for instance by using owner move-in evictions.

> Commercial property tho doesnt have rent control however.

But they still generally pay far, far less property tax than they should:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978...

Rent control is not tenant friendly. It collapses the supply of housing in a city. It's "old people"/"I got here first" friendly.

Rent control is only on buildings over 35 years old, and not when one rents a condo directly from its owner. There's other rules, but it's very much not "no more than 1% for existing tenants." Many, many people are rent controlled, but it is not everyone.

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