If you’re at a farmers market or Caltrain station on the Peninsula in the coming weeks, don’t be surprised if someone asks for your signature.
In the face of looming deadlines, tenant advocates in Mountain View, San Mateo and Burlingame are gathering signatures to get rent control initiatives placed on their November ballots.
Nowhere to hide landlords! Give me the keys and slowly back off…
This is going to make the issue worse in the long-term. I’ll kill what little new construction there is.
I think we are nearing a tipping point. The bay area is completely unaffordable to many service industry people. I think those people will start to leave, and those businesses won’t be able to hire enough people to stay open. The bay area will become even more of a playground for the rich and elite. It’ll be interesting how desirable it remains without service industry businesses though.
If you mean cashiers, those working in grocery stores and fast food restaurants, have seen hiring signs for a few years already. Pay is too low to pay for housing is my guess for the permanent job vacancy.
Yup. I think eventually those businesses will have to close.
Right. If a business is not profitable enough to pay sustainable wages, they deserve to go out of business.
I see there are a few tech trends attacking this problem already. One is the ever-expanding empire of Amazon. There are simply no reason for majority of shops to exist anymore. The latest casualty is Sports Authority. Why go to a physical shop, with its vastly smaller selection, when Amazon can ship things to you in the same day?
I see Amazon branded vans out and about in the Bay Area. They are up’ing their delivery game. More and more people are buying grocery from Amazon. So those “grocery bagging” jobs will go to the Central Valley like Tracy where Amazon has fulfillment centers. Bay Area solves the “low skill” workers problem by getting rid of the need for them.
Another interesting angle is the “share economy” tech trend aka Uber, and the gazillion startups modeled after Uber. Taxi driver as an occupation may come to an end. Replacing them are people doing part time work driving Uber. I wonder if other lower skill occupation will get assaulted by part timers. So Bay Area may need fewer full time low skill workers.
Well, with human nature and basic laws of economics, there will be people who will be willing to take those jobs. They certainly can’t afford to live here and will travel in from afar (Sac or the Valley) to do so. And sure, I have read articles where small employers can’t find good help. Well, they are gonna have to pay more. Some can probably do it and still make a living since this is a fairly affluent area. For example, so many people here love to eat out and are willing to spend to do so. Remember, the reported $4 piece of toast? As long as income levels are pretty high here, I think service providers will find a way to remain here to try to take a piece of that high discretionary income. Rich people will pay for the convenience of something being available today, despite the advances of Amazon and others.
I was reminded of Eatsa in a magazine article today. Eatsa is that techno-hip restaurant with no waiters serving quinoa bowls. You order thru an iPad or such and after some time your quinoa bowl will appear in some 2001 space odyssey type cubes in some shiny white wall.
The best part is the lack of human waiters, and the mildly unpleasant experience of figuring out the tip. I wish all restaurants were like that…
I also read that nowadays, it’s very common for adult children to live with their parents after college (or high school or whatever). So many younger people who would be in the service industries pay no rent or lower rent, while the parents keep the bigger house instead of moving down to the smaller place like they might have done in earlier days.
i know of many situations like this so … sounds pretty plausible to me.
If they could automate more they would… and they will. Whoever “they” are.
Is a good thing. Conserve natural resources. I wish everybody do likewise till they are married. In fact, I think developers should start building extended family size house. Nuclear family houses be damned.
Actually it is a trend… Many people want houses large enough for their parents, as another trend.
Rent control puts blame on the wrong people…Tenants should be demanding more housing to be built, not forcing confiscation of property rights…Blame the bureaucrats, nimbys, environmental wack jobs and global warming alarmists…all conspiring to create less housing
Which is exactly why when I first started buying I looked immediately at places for expansion potential. Sure, location first but once in I looked for high ceiling clearance on the ground floor or corner homes that have easy private expansion potential at the rear. Who would have thunk it that AirBnb would come around in addtion to the need from boomerang kids and senior parents??? People, some here, kept saying inlaws are a bad idea, and I begged to differ. The reality is that new construction and empty lots are expensive or hard to come by, so any building will be infill building. It is not rocket science, people.
[quote=“marcus335, post:2, topic:140, full:true”]
This is going to make the issue worse in the long-term. I’ll kill what little new construction there is.
New construction is not subject to rent control by state law. If anything, it would encourage new construction because it would not be subject to rent control. If written properly, however, it would be subject to a just cause eviction clause.
And the first domino (ending the rent control loophole) may fall and it may start up with our neighbors up North even…
See, @manch, even this prof from Bruinland owns rent controlled buildings…
“It creates an artificial shortage,” said Paul Habibi, a real estate professor at UCLA who owns rent-controlled buildings in Los Angeles.
Time to wave the white flag yet???
Is it just high priced Bay Are? What about outlying counties around BA that have more affordability? What do you think about Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, Lake, San Benito counties?
Statewide is red except for the coast…I live in El Dorado county…68% went for Trump and McClintock. …about as red as you can get. …If a statewide referendum on rent control passes, the inland counties will revolt. …Tea Party is still alive and well…
I live in a red county in a blue state…When the libs take over, I moving 6 miles away to my house in Nevada, like all my rich friends are doing…California is trying its best to drive out its taxpayers…We/they all leave, who will pay for all the social programs? Btw, a lot of Calpers pensioners are moving to Nevada…Maybe their pensions should be taxed just like income coming from California. …that alone could turn California red…lol
