The state of the San Francisco rental market.

Back to this topic again: why are all these landlords so greedy? Everybody uses craigslist here to find places to rent. Consequently, if a place is truly great for the money, 50+ people will show up for the open house. I don't know why, but more and more people are moving here again. I saw a place in the upper Haight last week, and two guys just out of college were telling the landlord that one of them had a job and the other one had enough savings to give the landlord 5 times the rent in advance. Everyone has a right to live here, and there is no question about that.

But someone put on craigslist tonight a large paragraph on the topic of landlords who advertise one bedrooms + another room which turns out not to be a legal bedroom and charges over $1000 each for these two supposed bedrooms. AND, what used to be a low-rent area like the excelsior or the bayview has now become equal with trendy areas like the Mission and Noe Valley. It is hard for me to believe that people are paying so much money for places that are in dangerous areas.

I saw a house in the Balboa Park area which is quite humble and rumbles with cops all the time. I used to have to drive through there to get to my job as a teacher of 8th grade English. It was an area of the city, since I'd only lived in the Mission, Haight and South of Market areas, I'd never seen before. When I went out to look at this house, I thought the rent was still over-priced because of the area. The rent was $1700. for a small three-bedroom house. I know there are people paying $1000. or less for a good neighborhood and equal amount of space. It's because rent control still works for some people--yay!

Unfortunately for me, my landlord sold my house I had rented in 1994 for $850./month. This was a whole house with a huge bedroom upstairs and a massive one downstairs. We paid $425/month in rent. By the time I was forced to move out, the rent was increased to $560. or something like that. The other night I spoke to someone who's been living under rent control for 20 years in Bernal Heights. I told him that he couldn't imagine how lucky he is. The author of the craigslist blurb about the inflated rents and demands of landlords in San Francisco said he was moving to India. Now, there's a thought.