On November 7th our city electorate was duped again by the Tenants
Union. Our one simple hope for lower income first time buyer home
ownership has been made thousands of dollars more expensive by
Proposition H. The intention of the proposition is to keep the rental
stock from being depleted by requiring building owners to pay
extraordinary relocation benefits to tenants who's rental agreements or
leases are terminated through previously agreed upon terms written in
their contract and provided for by law. These will not be handled by
developers, they are simply passed on to consumers: 1st time buyers of
TICs, New renters, and mom-n-pop landlords who use rentals as their
only income.
The whole thing works like this. Our city electorate is mainly made up
of renters. Thus, they [renters] have created a powerful partnership
between the powers that be in the city council, the Tenants Union and
the Rent Board. The Council drafts legislation and ballot measures that
steal money and rights of property owners and pass them equally to all
renters with little regard to financial or physical status. The TU
lobbies the electorate with biased rhetoric and the biased rent board
does the dirty work and the actual bullying of the property owners.
Yet the only reasonable argument for these subsidies to renters is that
"they [the renters] are the poor and disabled and needy" and must have
help to survive and live in such an expensive city. The fact is, that
these entitlements are not distributed only to the poor nor are they
given only by the rich or even the able. They are distributed to the
"renters" and given by the "property owners"!!! Further, they keep
changing the rules; taking more from the minority and giving to the
majority. There are housing terrorists essentially hiding in the midst
of our less fortunate.
Why does this discrepancy exist? It is because of lazy, shortsighted,
marginalized and on-the-take lawmakers like supervisors Mirkarimi,
Ammiano, Daly, Duffy, McGoldrick, Peskin, and Sandoval.
Lazy because they have over the years cobbled, patched and re-patched
a rental housing market regulation based on the assumption that renter
== poor and property owner == rich. They have tried to use this as a
means of distributing welfare at the expense of the well being of
families who want to live and grow in the city they love.
Shortsighted because they have failed to see the consequences of their
actions, among them low home ownership rates and flight of working
middle class families from SF.
Marginalized because San Francisco and California has for many years
allowed powerful lobbies such as Big Energy, the Tenants Union and the
like to sway voters with money and adds. The Tenants Union paid for all
9 arguments that were provided for Proposition in our voter Guide, more
than the SF Association of Realtors, the SF Apartment Association, SF
Small Apartment Owner Association (and there were a couple of others I
think) combined. How can a single well funded lobby push legislation
though so easily.
These supervisors are being paid by all of us and they are unfairly
supporting some extremely well to do renters in this city. Think of all
of the young professionals who come to SF because it is the center of
fun for young adults in northern california. They graduate from
expensive schools, move here, sew their oats here, take and take. And
then?: they marry, have families and move because they can afford
private school for the kids or a house but not both. The ones that are
left are those who do not have families (the responsible ones buy a
home the rest keep suckling the rent control tit). Yet the sups keep
their jobs because they pander to the Tenants Union.
It is also because of ignorant, apathetic, and reactionary voters:
They are ignorant, and I say this of myself as much as anyone. I know
considerable amount about real estate because that is my career it is
my job to know, but ask me about school bonds, or the effects of a
parking tax, or I remember one year some time ago I was asked to decide
how best to resolve problems with our water system and the hetch-hetchy
damn. I am not qualified for most of these issues and I consider myself
a fairly well read and intelligent voter. average, yet ignorant (this
goes back to the marginalization of the lawmakers above). Put the sups
to work they should be making these hard decisions.. (and we should be
spending our time and energy vetting them).
Apathetic, because of the low voter turn out.. come on guys 45%? most
of us don't care. I was talking to some people at an open-house sunday,
they were looking to buy a home and did not know about this proposition
[H] and that it would likely raise the price of real estate in SF.
Reactionary, because here in SF, with the slightest cry from a big
lobby such as the TU, we go and throw the baby out with the bath water.
I really see this mentality of Ballot Propositions and rental subsidies
as a problem that is seriously affecting our ability to raise families
here in one of the most wonderful cities in the world. My feeling is
that we must start by helping without hurting. what ever happened to
Win-Win? It is never the easy way but it is the best way. My wife and I
often have complete opposite opinions, but the best decisions we have
ever made were those where we struggled and found the third path that
led us to where we are today.
Next we have to pay much more attention to our children. A few weeks
ago I was saddened to see that after the violence that occurred at the
annual Castro Halloween extravaganza people were pointing fingers and
saying this group or that group were responsible. On commenter on a
blog said that "it was all those young hooligans fault no one under 21
should be allowed". When I was a kid, Halloween was for the kids, my
dad came home from work early, we paraded around the neighborhood (with
my Dad) and we took in tons of loot (ok, candy). The paper said that SF
City hired 500 extra cops to patrol the Castro, The only Peace Officer
I saw on Cortland Ave that night in the midst the hundreds if not
thousands of kids and parents was a 3 foot Sheriff with a cool Stetson
hat a shinny badge, and a plastic gun.... and no body got shot.
If there is a shortage of rental housing, then lets build some more of
it, and responsibly. I think we have begun to do some excellent work in
Bayview and Hunters point. Lets continue the job. Lets create and help
everyone to win, not just the renters.
Now that the family has taken back Bernal Hill, lets take back the rest
of the city: Vote, participate in the public school system, volenteer
for Habitat for Humanity, anything. There are many reasons to be a home
owner and many to be a renter. but don't let the Rent Trap decide for
you, stand on your own, and make up your own mind. I can help... can
you?
C Michael Sundius
Brown Bear Realty
303 Cortland Ave
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415)608-0121
realtor@sundius.com
http://www.sundius.com/brownbear
