No, luckily Santa Cruz does not have rent control or anything similar to it.
The only nuisance is the “Rental Ordinance” in the CITY of Santa Cruz. I believe it applies for owners of more than 3 SFRs, or any single property with 5+ units. The rental ordinance allows the city to do inspections, and they can require the owner to make repairs. The inspection is annually, but the owner can self-inspect and the city inspects only every 5 years.
The city of SC also wants such landlords to have a business license … I think it’s ~$100 a year.
The “Rental Ordinance” can be avoided by buying in the County or in other cities.
Now I wonder how much rent will increase as the minimum wage increases $1 every year for the next 5 years. That’s 50% rise in people’s wages. A really big deal. Maybe we should all rush out to buy apartments up and down the Central Valley and in towns like Watsonville.
I have not calculated rent increase with inflation or $1 increase, but year over year (over a period of 12 years) it is 3% minimum or safe limit to assume with bay area.
There may be economic ups and downs, but over all is 3% fair estimate. The max rent drop has 25% during Year 2000 downturn.
3% is bearable given current low mortgage rate, low interest rate, and high capital appreciation environment. Is it still 3% during high mortgage rate (>7%) period?
You can run it without employees-- charge cheap enough that you are always full, -and nobody ever moves out. Once or twice a year you have to move in/out tenants
Contract for cleaning or other maintenance services. Not more work than managing rental home unless you have high turnover
I do not have statistics pre-2004. I was renting 1997-2004 in bay area, but that belongs to dot.com fall out period. For the same 2 bed Sunnyvale apt, I paid $1250 (1997), $1850 (2000-2001) and then reduce to $1350 (2002-2004). It does not give any correct info.
IMO, Rent increases in relation to inflation over a long period.
2017 will have great economic growth in USA, watch out, but not for real estate (as mortgages are going up).
Second, 2008 downturn did not impact bay area really except in real estate and real estate related jobs.
2001 effect on bay area was worst on local jobs or economy, but not heavily on real estate. Rental rates were drastically down as many apartments were empty with no takers (as a result of high jobs loss). People ran away from bay area (as shown in picture) and population growth was down after 2001.
Regarding real estate buying/selling, foreclosures in 2001 was less effect than 2008 period. 2001 real estate sales impact was less as there were NO 0-0-0 loans (zero down, zero cost, zero doc loans). That time, we had 20% down payment was norm.
Our mortgage lending has been pretty restrictive. The risk of housing bubble burst is very low. Lenders can relax the lending standard when mortgage business slows.
