I want to submit my personal opinion as to rent control and the overall harm it will instill vs the overall benefits. As a landlord of five units, (two duplexes and three condo units), I can tell you that being a landlord is a difficult business to run and remain in the black (profit area). From constant repairs, to vacancies, to evictions, late rent payments, loss of income, and the neverending challenge of paying a mortgage, rising home insurance cost, maintenance, renter insurance, utilities, and gardening services, weighed against the eventual appeal of simply liquidating the investment, selling becomes more appealing as time goes by.
I would challenge Wendy Santamaria to become a landlord and to experience the difficult job that that really is. Her pleading for tenants to have low cost rents is simply irresponsible. I would like to see her trying to control tenants who have little to no respect for the property, often fail to pay rents on time, who many times will illegally sublease rooms, and then at the end eventual stop paying rent so that they can live rent free for three to six months. Had she spent a few years experiencing this dreadful job, she would not be so one sided and sympathetic to tenants.
More and more landlords, like me, will eventually sell the units and be done with the dirty job of being a landlord. I sold my three units and kept just two — one of which I chose to live in — because the courts, city council members, and investment ratios are all stacked against us.
I can attest, personally speaking, that the long run effect of this will be that more and more landlords will liquidate, and eventually you will end up with less and less rental units in S.B. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for, and, be careful as it can come back to bite you in the you know where.
