Tenants’ rights gone wild in Oakland
Why would anyone want to be a small landlord in a city with rules like this?:
Oakland is one of the last cities in the Bay Area hanging on to its eviction moratorium, which was introduced during the pandemic to protect tenants from eviction.
Many mom-and-pop landlords claim their tenants are taking advantage of the policy, leaving them at risk of losing their livelihoods…
Williams currently lives in the top unit of the duplex he’s owned for nearly 20 years. It is his only home. Renting it out was supposed to secure his retirement. But at the end of this month, he’s facing foreclosure.
He said for 10 years, his tenant in the bottom unit had paid $1,500 for the 3-bedroom, 1-bath, though the checks always came late or bounced.
But in March 2020, she stopped paying altogether.
“It’s a nightmare,” Williams told KPIX. “It’s an absolute endless nightmare where it’s ridiculous that we’re put in this situation for three years, with no conversation, or any kind of dialogue on how do we recapture our funds, other than we have to go to court to do that, or chase them or lose the money.”
I’ve known for years that, in the Bay Area, tenants’ rights make it nearly impossible to evict anyone. That was true even before COVID, and COVID only made it worse. Here are the Oakland rules as they stand now, at least on paper.
By the way, $1500 a month for a 3-bedroom apartment in Oakland is dirt cheap.
Destroying lives is the whole point.
There’s only one answer to your question: insanity.
https://www.mlb.com/news/a-s-buy-land-in-las-vegas-for-future-ballpark
Buggin’ out is in the air.
I once tried to build my retirement and kids future housing based on small residential landlording.
The income was trivial, but housing prices increased. A nice investment for retirement.
Then Oregon decided to start putting these anti-landlord provisions into place.
I didn’t mind the limit to the rent increases, as they were tied to the CPI, but I could not abide by my inability to evict someone after their lease ran out. I was making a deal for a fixed amount of time, not giving them my house forever.
I sold my places, and now my good tenants lost their homes.
Well done Oregon.
How is the state or federal government not on the hook for reimbursing losses to landlords by mandating their illegal rent amnesty during and after COVID?
Not Richard Epstein’s remarks on legislation like this and the allied issues associated with rent control. The physical entry is palpable, the compensation is wholly inadequate, and the justification is shopworn. It is a taking, and properly ruled unconstitutional. Not that the courts ever enforce the constitution in black letters (as opposed to the fantasy constitution dreamed up by the har-de-har public interest bar).
How is the state or federal government not on the hook for reimbursing losses to landlords by mandating their illegal rent amnesty during and after COVID?
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Not sure this was done in 2020 per a federal diktat. In any case, regulating transactions between landlords and tenants is not a delegated power and any effort to do so would be slapped down by the courts if we had men of integrity manning them. We don’t, of course. You might argue it was a delegated power if the landlord was a multi-state enterprise or lived out of state, but that’s not the case here.
Destroying lives is the whole point.
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Liberal politics in our time is largely sociopathic and malevolent. It did not used to be that way.
Honestly, arson becomes an option at some point. Burn it to the ground and collect the insurance. The deadbeat tenant will have to find a new place to squat.
Honestly, arson becomes an option at some point.
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End stage rent control.
It should be an illegal taking, but with blue slips you end up with leftist federal judges in California.
The non Oakland lawsuits on eviction moratoriums seemed to help end all the other ones.
Most landlords own under 4 doors, and they can’t afford this type of theft.
If I did not have family responsibilities I would be looking hard at moving out of state. As a landlord you have a huge target in your back in California. And it’s going to get worse.
Lots of multi family for sale in la city. A major apartment agent I know recommends against buying in LA.
There was a “partial moratoriium” on evictions in the CARES Act, according to this article.
“First, the CARES Act placed a partial moratorium on evictions across the country. Then the CDC declared a nationwide eviction moratorium after it expired, initially scheduled to end 12/31/20, then later extended no fewer than five times. On the final extension, the Supreme Court ruled the extension unconstitutional on 8/26/21. That opened the door for landlords to enforce their leases once again — 18 months after the initial CARES Act ban on evictions.
However many states and cities implemented their own stringent eviction bans, barring landlords from starting the eviction process.
Those wound down over the course of 2022.”
Washington State implemented its own eviction moratorium. I do know there is still a federal/state program to help renters pay their rent.
https://sparkrental.com/eviction-moratorium/
California does have programs that helped with rent relief due to Covid. One of our tenants applied for it when his work hours were cut 50% due to Covid. This was in Riverside County, and everything went very smoothly. The Riverside County Program I think went through the United Way.
A larger professional management firm mentioned just keep on applying, it takes time, but he did get paid for the tenants he manages. He is in LA County.
The headache can be if the tenant does not work with you, or even OK after you did an application. Part of the official 3 day notice to pay rent for a while, was you had to apply for rent assistance, and then you could not proceed until you were turned down. But if the tenant never did their part, you ended up in limbo. At least the 3 day notice in most areas has gone back to being more normal. LA City, bless their hearts, has special requirements. And then you get Oakland.
3% Max Raise in Rents Yearly in Oakland! So if inflation is 10%, you are losing 7% every year. Talk about a taking.
I am so glad we are not in Oakland, what a nightmare. I don’t think you are allowed to do a criminal check either in Oakland.
In the AOA Trade Magazine (apartment owners of America), i read a story about a tenant in Oakland that applied before covid, started renting, and then was found to be a criminal. He chased away other tenants. He was all set to be evicted, but a judge decided the the Covid Eviction Moratorium stopped that. The owner was in danger of losing the complex with no rental income.
Another story in Santa Monica. Landlord did not raise rents. He got rent control. He had to do major structural stuff to the apartment, he could not afford because of low rents. Place was torn down, and turned into condos. Also from the AOA Magazine.
Honestly, arson becomes an option at some point.
Where I come from that’s known as “Irish lightning.”
Also, depending your ethnicity and such, as “Jewish lightning,” “Greek lightning,” Italian lightning” . . . you get the drift.
In related news:
“OAKLAND, CA — A historic change is set to take place in the landscape of Major League Baseball, as the Oakland Athletics announced plans to purchase land in Las Vegas, Nevada to build a new stadium and relocate. Insiders report that the final decision was made after yet another homeless camp appeared along the first base line during the team’s most recent homestand.”
https://tinyurl.com/yhu5knua
Good luck trying to evict a squatter / non-rent-payer from a NYC apartment. It’s possible after you spend many thousands in legal fees and a bunch of trips to court. Meanwhile, the non-rent payer gets to live rent free for about one year or so.
Not a bad deal for the perp.
In rent controlled LA per this article there are cash for key offers as high as $75k to move.
An article from 2018:
https://la.curbed.com/2018/7/26/17608272/cash-for-keys-tenant-buyout-offer
In a multi family owner meeting I think I heard of a $20k average to move out of a rent control unit. City of LA has special requirements.
A neighbor in riverside county offered $2k and the tenant behind in rent moved. It was cheaper than eviction plus no rent from apartment. Sometimes it’s cheaper to do cash for keys vs evicting for cause.
If the person has been there over 12 months in California you can’t evict now without cause. And if you evict for substantial renovation (an exception) you must give them a months rent.
After rent control our turn over has gone down a lot. For the same unit rents paid vary 50%. Max we can increase is 10%.
“Why would anyone want to be a small landlord in a city with rules like this?:”
Why would any sane person live in Oakland. Or California. Or any place where Democrats reign. All my siblings live in the Nashville area. None of them live within metro Nashville any more. It’s always been run by Democrats and always been corrupt. Not on the scale of a Memphis, and certainly not near a Chicago or Boston or NJ, but pretty thoroughly corrupt. After all, Democrats are gonna Democrat.
Is anyone familiar with any place that Democrats dominate that isn’t seriously corrupt?
So, even in a red state like Tennessee I would never live within Memphis or Nashville city limits (and in Nashville that’s the whole county). I’d never live within Atlanta or Louisville or Birmingham city limits. Or a variety of NC places dominated by the left. They are crazy.
The effect of all the new rules will be to drive small landlords out of the business, pushing it all to non-profits and corporations, which are easy to control and tax.
The new tax* on all real estate transactions over $5 M is part and parcel of this effort.
*The so-called “mansion” tax on “millionaires and billionaires”. It’s actually on all real estate transactions: empty land, apartment complexes, commercial and industrial…
In Washington state, like most blue states, protections go to the renter.
I bought a foreclosure in 2019, which still had “tenants”, so it couldn’t be viewed. Given that, no one was willing to bid on the house. I was standing outside the property, when a person came outside and I recognized him as someone I had coached in Little League baseball, 25 years previously.
His name was Wilson, a big black kid (excuse me, adult) and he recognized me. He let me go inside the house– which was not in horrible shape, some signs of roof leaks (the roof was in terrible need of being replaced) and generally filthy.
He told me he wanted to stay in the house, was paying $800/mo rent and I told him if I bought the house he could stay.
I made a bid on the house, and a few weeks later it was mine– sort of. I tried to contact Wilson and had no luck. Days turned into weeks and about a month later I finally found him at home. I told him he was already late paying the rent we’d agreed on when he told me he’d talked to a lawyer and he was paying rent and I’d have to evict him.
The bank holding the mortgage had started an eviction process but hadn’t followed through, so I had to start with over with the 60 day notice of vacancy, which is required when the house is sold.
I tried the cash for keys route, but to no avail. I found out later from the realtor handling the bank’s foreclosures, Wilson had been offered $7,000 to vacate– an amount she said was unprecedented in 2019, and he refused to take it– so my offer of $1,000 seemed insignificant to him.
In all, the process took five months. I had just retired so I handled the paperwork myself. The filings cost around $500 vs. the $2-3 thousand it would take had a lawyer handled it.
The house had already had the water and electricity cut off and toward the end he was just storing his stuff there. After he was out, I ran into him at a local store and he told me, “I guess I should have taken the money”.
It took a year and a half to remodel the house, including an addition as in 2020 it was impossible to get an inspection and everything just stopped.
I have a couple of rentals, and both families struggle to pay the rent, but they take care of the property. I vacillate about being a landlord.
Ideally, laws protecting tenants would be geared to efficient impositions of levies on landlords for failure to make repairs, failure to provide ancillary services agreed upon, failure to sanction troublesome tenants, invasion of privacy, &c. Running interference for deadbeat tenants is an avenue to reducing the quantum of available rental housing. More abandoned buildings, fewer extant buildings renovated, fewer new buildings constructed. Some deadbeats are ordinary people who’ve had a spot of misfortune. Some are sketchy characters gaming others in crude ways.
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If the person has been there over 12 months in California you can’t evict now without cause.
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You shouldn’t be able to evict anyone without cause while the lease is running. (And if they’re squatting after the lease has expired, you have cause).
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One thing I’d like to see on the local level is changes in building codes and land use law which might (effective demand permitting) allow the return of rungs on the housing ladder below the studio apartment – apartments with shared kitchens, boarding houses, and flop houses.
I’m curious on why tenement housing disappeared. I went to the tenement museum in nyc and seemed to be a combination of public health and progressives. They did not have a straight answer, but were more focused on racial politics.
The California junior ADU law I believe allows for a shared kitchen.
“studio apartment – apartments with shared kitchens, boarding houses, and flop houses.”
ADU’s are a big thing with smaller real estate investors, but due to environmental laws / regulations there is a huge amount of missing housing. It’s too expensive and takes too long to build in Ca, so new houses are limited.
Good article:
https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-regulatory-labyrinth
I’m curious on why tenement housing disappeared.
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As far as I can tell, tenement housing consisted of multi-story buildings – some of them formerly commercial buildings or single-family homes – cut up into apartments. The buildings had front and rear windows, but seldom side windows. They were often deficient in toilets if not lacking them entirely, lacking in indoor plumbing generally, deficient in exterior lighting, plagued by fire hazards. Given the technology of the time, the country produced less and a manifestation of that was in housing amenities. If the historical sources I consulted are correct, the average New York City tenement building would have had about 2,000 sq. feet of interior space on each floor and the average floor would have had seven people living on it ordered into one or two households. It seems from the rough data that deficiencies of space and lighting were less of an issue than deficits of sanitation, the presence of fire hazards, &c. I assume what happened to them is that they were razed and replaced with better quality construction or they were refurbished to correct their various defects (and had fewer people living in them in accordance with the secular decline in the size of households).
ADU’s are a big thing with smaller real estate investors, but due to environmental laws / regulations there is a huge amount of missing housing. It’s too expensive and takes too long to build in Ca, so new houses are limited.
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I imagine building codes in Calfiornia are more stringent – and properly so – due to the earthquake hazard.
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Per Thos. Sowell, one issue in the Bay Area has been that land is sequestered for green space, subdivision of parcels is inhibited, and placing multistory apartments buildings on what were single family lots is also inhibited. It was his estimate that about 1/2 of the potential sale price of his house was attributable to land use regulations.
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I’m told by people who’ve owned rental property in both locations that eviction procedures are much more streamlined in California than they are in New York.
I don’t know about ny, but in Ca it depends on the county and city. And unofficially on which judge you get. And how dirty the tenant fights.
My wife’s cousin, family super star, and ex NY Big Law, top law school graduate, etc has a rental that took him pre Covid over 8 months to get the person out. The tenant was a paralegal and pulled every trick in the book to delay. He had to hire a lawyer. Average back then for evictions was 6 weeks.
My guess on tenements being phased out it also had to do with what was culturally acceptable to those writing the building codes. A fascinating talk I heard at an old house group is how the design of residences reflects the culture of the time.