If prop 33 passes, we will have to sell our rental property putting yet another family out of a home. Single family landlords are barely keeping up with average rents in the area which are being artificially increased by low rental volume likely due to the number of short-term rentals available (and not on the rental market) and the number of homes being purchased and rented by wall street firm portfolios. Prop 33 is not the solution.
My family has worked hard to create a small family run business that builds and manages homes for average American families in our city. My grandfather came to California during the Dustbowl with nothing but a 6th grade education and the desire to work hard and succeed. He built several homes in Los Angeles and taught my father the trade. Together, with their own hands, they built a number of homes in Southern California that continue to offer housing at a reasonable rate hard working families. We believe it's the right thing to offer rent at a price that is both fair and just-- that we negotiate with our tenants. It will kill our business and the legacy that my grandfather built. This proposition will hurt the small property owners like my family, not just the big investors.
As an elected city councilmember, I am concerned the impacts Prop 33 will have on our ability to provide housing for our community.
My wife and I are small time mom and pop owners in San Diego. The apartments are our retirement plan. We have had most of the same good tenants for more than 20 years. We are kind to them on the rents etc. We have sacrificed much and deferred to the future for close to 30 years. Prop 33 could upend our three decades of hard work. Prop 33 takes away our ability to control our own business. Of all that is anti mom and pop owner operator provisions vacancy control is the most concerning. The fact that we would not be able to raise rents when re renting would put us in jeopardy of not being able to keep up with expenses forcing us to sell, sooner or later, no doubt at a lower price than pre Prop 33. This really is an anti-Tenant bill in the sense that we are forced to raise rent as much as we can as often as we can to protect ourselves from more restrictive measures down the road. If we the mom and pop operators have to sell the tenants lose out, no doubt corporations will buy up the properties and turn them over to impersonal management companies that did not provide the level of service that mom and Pop operators do. This really is a life and death struggle for those of us who are the little guys.
My senior husband and I invested in rental property to live on. We also have kept the tenant rates low so our long term ones did not have to move. If not allowed to bring the rents up to market when they do, we will be penalized for being good and caring landlords. It also seems dangerous to have rent control when financial experts and past history have shown it not only to not be effective but to actually be detrimental.
I am a widowed homeowner with an adult son with Autism. I support us by renting out our property. I bought my place from an owner who was renting the home to a friend for only $600 per month. The place had no heat, broken windows and pipes, and old everything. I fixed it up and rented it to a section 8 tenant for market rent. Under this new proposal, I would have to continue to rent it for only $600! There would be no incentive to buy it and fix it under this new proposal. We are already struggling with the high interest rates and increasing repair costs. Please don’t pass more laws that will make us bankrupt.
The so called Justice for Renters Act, if inacted, will tend to make owners charge the legal maximums allowed and offer the minimum of owner funded services. Taxes increase, insurance rates increase, HOA fees increase, Home Warranty plans increase, utilities increase, mortgage rates increase, costs of appliance and floor covering increase, cost of repairs increase, etc. So the owner has no other option than to charge the legal maximum and offer the least amount of ammenities lest they lose money in the future with Prop 33 rent control limits.